


Heroes and Spirits

by Anonymous



Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: Action & Romance, F/F, Rare Pairings, Some Fluff, Spirits, exoskeletons, really rare ship like holy fuck, this is way longer than it needed to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 06:56:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 40,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16424552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: When Akko finds herself to be the accidental test subject for one of Constanze's new creations, she decides to roll with it and become something like a superhero.But, to every hero, there's a villain.How will Akko deal with the problems that arise?





	1. Accident.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akko goes to Constanze for help.  
> As expected, she fucks up.

Constanze gave the finishing touch on her newest invention and moved to turn off the welder. Finally able to relax, she removed the mask she was wearing, took off her gloves and wiped her brow, smearing the dark oil that was already there further down her face. She didn’t mind that, at not at this moment. Without the sound of sparks and fire, her secret workshop was silent, except for the faint noise of her own soft breathing. This peace is what she liked the most. Being able to work uninterrupted was the essence of her being. She cherished every moment alone with her machines.

But this time she had done things a little differently. As she removed her work apron and sat on the couch she had down there – a couch that desperately needed a wash – she yawned. Was it time to go to bed already? It wasn’t unusual for her to lose track of time while working. Rubbing one of her eyes, she considered the possibility of taking a nap on the couch, but decided against it. A shower was her next order of business. She had class tomorrow and she couldn’t go out in public with her face black and smelling like oil and metal.

So she stood again, walked to her work desk and took her new creation. This time she wouldn’t be able to test it herself, for it needed someone athletic that could handle it. She didn’t know who the test subject was going to be, but that was not a problem at the moment, since she already had some options in mind.

Right now the problem was that she didn’t know the time and if she didn’t hurry the showers might be closed for the day.

 

During class, Constanze didn’t pay attention. She didn’t need to, at least not in potions class. Potions class was just follow some instructions and memorize them, things she was used to do. This time she was taking notes of the possible subjects she had chosen to test out her new invention.

There were four of those. Verochka, the tall Russian girl who was as hard as a tree and as serious as a rock. Her physical abilities would probably make her the perfect subject, if not for the fact that she would probably refuse to test something dangerous that has not been tested yet. Lin-Lin, the energetic Chinese girl with the panda buns on her head. Her careful way of doing exercise would probably work perfectly or a test on careful manipulation of her creation, but she wasn’t someone that Constanze knew very well. Amanda, the fire-haired reckless flier from Texas, troublemaker from the heart and Constanze’s teammate. Her flexibility and athletics would also help test the limits of her machine, but her strength was mostly in flying, so she wouldn’t take much advantage of it. And last, but not least, Akko, the hyperactive noisy Japanese brunette who’s two big talents were to make people smile and to cause mischief. Maybe not the more physically apt, but of all the subjects, she was surely the one to go if she wanted to really put to test the durability of the invention. Biggest problem was, Constanze wasn’t sure she wanted her to risk testing it out. Akko was prone to accidents, after all, and Constanze wouldn’t forgive herself if anything happened to her friend.

Well, there was one other, but it wasn’t worth considering, so one of the four students would have to do. She’d ask them all, and hopefully one of them would accept. Well, she knew two of them would probably accept, but that was part of why she was hesitant to ask them. She didn’t wish to take advantage of their kindness.

Closing her eyes, she prepared herself. Not because she was nervous, but because trying to talk to people who weren’t used to her was a pain in the ass.

 

The tiny witch sat in her workshop – also her hangar – where, if one took a peek from the corner, the red and white pieces of what had been the magical mecha Grand Charion dominated the view. That was probably her best creation yet, and she was the proudest about it, even if it had ended a tiny bit destroyed. The fact that certain brunette had helped create it could have something to do with it, but that was another matter entirely.

She closed her eyes, trying to resolve her problems. Mostly, the fact that she couldn’t test her own creation herself, but she also didn’t dare ask any other witch to do it for her. When she had tried to talk to one of her test subjects, her body froze. The morality of it was shady, since she knew fully well that, should things fail, the subject could be slightly traumatized.

But then, why had she created in the first place? She had gone over and over in the design, making sure every bit of it was perfect, and yet _now_ she considered these things? When working, she had a sort of tunneled way of thinking that only allowed her to focus on her goal. She had never considered that upon finishing it, she would be too much of a coward to ask someone to test it.

Her exoskeleton.

It had taken her months of planning to be able to make it. The best mixture of magic and tech she had ever seen, the ultimate body improvement spell. Problem was, it had a will of its own. She had managed to convince a spirit to control it, but the spirit would only accept a user with good physical abilities. The spirit’s magic would transfer through the mechanism’s own magic, enhancing them and whoever wore it to a superhuman status. Maybe she was a little obsessed with mecha shows and tokusatsu, but the perspective of being able to turn someone into a superhero was really appealing to her.

She shifted in place, looking for a more comfortable position to think. She ended up lying down. Maybe using a spirit hadn’t been such a good idea, but it wasn’t evil or anything, it just liked superhero movies. Kind of like herself, really. Only problem was that the spirit was a little… passionate, to say the least. Constanze feared that if someone not apt tried to use the exoskeleton, they might get themselves hurt or worse. If the spirit saw the user as worth it, it would allow itself to be controlled.

Of course, experiments without spirits had been made. There were a few prototypes, but she didn’t like to think about _those_.

She yawned. There had to be a way…

 

Akko puffed her cheeks, angry. She was mumbling, cursing Sucy on the low.

“‘do it yourself, you’ll never stop being an idiot if you don’t’” she mocked in an overly high pitched voice. “If I don’t get it how am I supposed to do it myself?” She grunted, crossing her arms. Walking through the hallways of Luna Nova, she drew looks of uninterested students who only saw this scene as Akko being Akko. It was a good day, the sun shone with strength and the air was warm, yet not hot.

Despite this, Akko didn’t have time to enjoy it. Diana was busy with her own ordeals, Lotte had a whole new volume of Nightfall to read and Jasminka was too busy being scolded for stealing food from the kitchens yet again.

With Amanda being no pro at potions herself, that only left Akko with one option: Her favorite tiny mechanic.

She wasn’t anywhere in sight, and with the day’s classes ended, that probably meant one thing.

She carefully opened the green team’s room door, peeking inside. Nobody home. Slipping in she closed without any sound and moved to the lone bed that was Constanze’s. Pressing the secret switch at the foot of the bed, she sat down and allowed the bed to swallow her.

The mine cart below started moving at high speeds. It had been a while since the last time she’d done this, but she smiled through the small trip.

The cart stopped, the bottom opened, she fell, and she fell on a soft cushion-

A grunt of pain and surprise, plus a couple of legs, made Akko fall off the green couch and hit the ground.

“Ouch.” She sat up, rubbing her head, and looked at the couch, where an angry and tiny girl looked at her with a sleepy frown. “Oh, hello Constanze, how are you doing?” She asked, standing and looking around. “Man, it’s been a while, but this place hasn’t changed one bit!”

The cage in the corner, the shelves with mechanical parts and the work desk where the blueprints for some new invention rested, everything was almost exactly as she imagined. “Wait, what’s that?” She asked, pointing at the new piece of furniture in the room. Next to the desk there was a little table where a set of long and strangely shaped metal pieces rested.

“Exoskeleton.” Said a stanbot. “Want to try it?” The little robot pointed at it, speaking with Constanze’s own voice, a fact most people never got to learn.

Constanze grunted in surprise, standing and instantly dashing to cover the thing with her body. She shook her head energetically. Akko saw this with curiosity. “Ah, I see, you’re back to your old ways, eh? You know you don’t have to do everything alone, Cons.” She smirked, standing closer to the short witch, who kept shaking her head. The brunette looked over her. The metal pieces, now that the stanbot had mentioned what they were, did kind of resemble a human body. Eight middle length ones that mixed to form arms and legs, a long one with two four short ones at the top and bottom that connected them, obviously the spine, shoulders and hips, and a bunch of hook-looking ones that were probably supposed to go around the chest and simulate ribs. Along with this, a horseshoe-shaped one at the top of it all that probably connected to the head. “Wow.” Akko’s eyes widened.

Constanze still body-blocked the artifact, but Akko took another step closer to it. Now they were mere centimeters apart from each other, which didn’t bother Akko, but the navy-blue haired girl was starting to get flustered.

She tried to push Akko away, but the brunette didn’t move. Akko heard her grunts of frustration. “Now, now, what is it?”

Constanze sighed in exhasperation, quickly going to get her little blackboard. On it, she wrote ‘Danger.’ Akko raised an eyebrow. “It’s dangerous? Nah, no way.” She turned around. “Whatever you build is surely going to be perfect!” Well, the Stanship had crumbled after its transformation, but then again the transformation had managed to defeat the giant Fuel-Spirit monster that Croix had created. Confident in her statement, she approached the exoskeleton, ignoring the fact that her friend was pulling from her skirt trying to impede her from doing so and dragging her along. “Don’t. Be. So. Shy!” Akko struggled to walk forward. “I’m just going to take a look!” She cried while Constanze’s fingers slipped. Akko tripped, skidded a few steps, fell and crashed.

Into the table with the exoskeleton.

The metal had a life of its own. The second it touched her, Akko felt an electric current that froze her. The artifact moved alone, slipping under Akko’s clothes. The spine piece was cold to the touch, and the rib-like hooks closed around her chest. Akko felt the distinct feeling of magic energy in her nape as the head piece placed itself on top of her head like a crown. Her arms and legs were next, sliding across her sleeves and skirt, tightly holding her extremities with little magic green wires.

Once the process was done, she was allowed to move again. “Ouch.” She said again, standing up. Constanze was looking at her with an angry expression. She slowly closed her eyes and face-palmed. Akko blushed, smiling awkwardly. A few seconds of silence passed until Constanze moved again, walking to Akko. She signaled moving her finger in circles. Akko understood this as ‘turn around’. She did.

She instantly noticed something was off.

She felt as light as a feather. Her steps didn’t appear to have any kind of weight to them, and more importantly, she completed the turn so fast that when she managed to stop she had actually rotated about a thousand degrees.

“W-what?” Akko looked at herself. She barely felt the movements she was making, as if her body moved faster than it could process it. “This is…” She looked at her hand, where her veins seemed to shine with the green light of magic. Constanze cringed, expecting criticism. “So cool!” Akko exclaimed, smiling widely.

Constanze cocked her head and frowned. Confusion obvious in her face, Akko tried to take a step towards her and found herself tackling the girl on accident, despite their few meters of separation.

“Sorry Constan…” Akko paused when she noticed she was accidentally pinning down the girl. _Cute,_ She thought, looking into the German girl’s teal green eyes. Constanze’s expression was a mix of anger and surprise as she used her feet to try to kick Akko away, failing. _‘Interest.’_ The brunette didn’t get up, suddenly confused. _‘Cute,’_ a voice said in her head. _‘Constanze.’_ It was high pitched, but it didn’t bother her ears. She was so distracted by this that she didn’t notice how her friend’s face was growing redder by the second. _‘Help her,’_ the voice said. Akko looked down, finally realizing the problem of where she was, and got up – faster than she had anticipated – dragging Constanze along with her. She pulled up so fast that she inadvertently had Constanze up in the air, holding her up by the hand. Her weight was next to none to her muscles.

“Sorry!” The brunette put her friend in the ground, and Constanze looked up at her for a few seconds before slowly walking back and sitting in the couch. She rubbed her forehead for a few seconds before sighing and looking at Akko.

Using her blackboard, she wrote ‘Take it off’ and stared daggers at her. Akko felt slightly disappointed, but nodded, moving to do so.

She stopped, laughing nervously.

“Ehm… How do I do it?”


	2. Failure.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, if she can't take it off, she might as well take advantage of her situation!

She hadn’t implemented a way to take off the exoskeleton.

Why had she forgotten to implement a way to take the damn thing off?

She had forgotten… With a grunt of frustration, Constanze sat in her work desk, rubbing her temples. She turned to look at Akko, who stood very quietly, trying not to break anything. It would take a while yet for her to fully connect to the spirit and be able to handle her new physical abilities better. Her hands had dim trails of pale green light, and her irises were outlined by the same kind of glow. Both effects would disappear after a while, but for now, they were a clear reminder of Constanze’s failure.

She had failed to foresee such a simple thing. She had only focused on functionality and absolutely ignored the most basic of them. Failure wasn’t even close to describing the situation. This was a catastrophe, a crime, a…

Constanze let out another grunt. And, of all the people, of course it had to be _Akko._ The only human being idiotic and oblivious enough to just drop into a mechanic’s secret workshop and start touching stuff without permission. The only human being that trusted her more than she trusted herself too, apparently.

With a sigh, she started to consider ways to fix the problem. There were options, the obvious one being just taking the magic out of the exoskeleton. But that was the last resort, as she didn’t want to lose the months worth of work she put into it. Another one might be to convince the spirit to let go, but Akko would have to be the one to do that, now that they were connected, and Constanze had her doubts that the spirit would be willing to let go so easily. The last one she could imagine was to let Akko and the spirit tire themselves out. Not that she would mind that, watching Akko exercise would certainly be entertaining. Despite her clumsiness the brunette had a way of shining when she was having fun that just made Constanze want to stare, and stare, and stare… Shaking her head, she tried to focus again.

Stripping down Akko and trying to pull out the artifact was completely out of the question. The exoskeleton could seriously hurt her if tried to remove so forcefully while it was connected to the very magic of her being. No, the exercise part was her best chance.

She waved Akko to get closer, and then, via hand signals and pointing, she tried to communicate what she wanted. “Oh, then I just gotta run?” Akko asked, and Constanze nodded energetically.  Akko smiled, gave her a thumbs up and slowly walked towards the hangar. Once there, she took off.

She was _fast._

Constanze had trouble keeping up with her speed. She was probably going at about a hundred and twenty kilometers per hour, if not faster. Luckily, not only her speed but also her reflexes and resistance should have been enhanced too, allowing her to actually manage her new power.

The tiny girl sat down, watching Akko run around the rests of Grand Charion, chastising herself for being such an idiot.

But a small part of her actually thanked this overlook, as it gave her an excuse to actually be closer to Akko, even if for only a while.

 

Constanze had created something like _this?_ And Akko believed Grand Charion had been impressive!

Each time she ran around the hangar, she gave Constanze a smile, though she noticed the other girl probably didn’t catch her expression. It was weird. She felt the strong wind in her face and eyes, but she didn’t need to close them to protect them or felt the friction. Her clothes flapped with energy, but other than that, she didn’t really feel the speed. It was like running normally, it was the world that seemed to go slower.

Also, despite the fact that she had already done about twenty laps to the hangar she was not at all tired. She kept going, waiting to see if Constanze told her to stop, giving the cute, tiny witch a look every time she passed next to her. Akko believed she had been told to run so that maybe the artifact would run out of magic or something, but if that was supposed to happen, she failed to perceive it.

Not that she cared, she could keep going all day.

She did.

 

When Akko stopped, Constanze took a few seconds to snap out of her trance. She had been watching the brunette run for so long that when the motion got interrupted her brain didn’t process it. “Constanze, I think it’s probably time to go eat.” Akko commented. Of course she would stop for food. Constanze couldn’t help but smile a little at this simple-mindedness. 

Even then, she had been running for a long while and she didn’t look agitated at all. Akko had a lot of stamina, stamina that was also amplified by the magic in the exoskeleton. For once, Akko’s physical attributes backfired on her. Constanze shook her head and pointed up, trying to explain to Akko that she couldn’t go back looking like she did.

“Oh, right, I’d get you into trouble if I did that…” Akko sat in the floor to think. The green light in her eyes and hands was barely noticeable now. Akko was adapting quickly to the exoskeleton. “But the only real problem comes from the head piece, right? If we can hide that then nobody would notice.” She pointed at the metallic piece resting on her face.

Constanze hummed in agreement. She did have a point, and that way Akko wouldn’t have to be sequestered down in her hangar until she figured out a way of fixing her abysmal mistake. However, before that, she held up a finger and tried to explain to Akko that she had to be conscious of the power she now carried.

“I know, I know, a great power carries a great responsibility bla bla bla. Relax, I promise I won’t hug anyone to death,” she rolled her eyes before looking at Constanze and smiling. “Except maybe… You!” Akko picked up the tiny girl before she could even see it and squeezed her. For a second, Constanze thought that was going to be it, she was done for, Akko would crush her spine. The brunette, however, was extremely careful as she hugged her and rubbed her cheek against hers. Once the fear of death vanished, Constanze had only self consciousness left. Why did Akko have to be so… Well, _Akko?_ She felt her chest warm up, not to mention her face. Akko didn’t notice that Constanze was not used to physical contact, and the effect it had on her thoughts. Even more when it came from Akko herself. Despite her being sweaty, Constanze didn’t mind at all being hugged, which is why it did bothered her. She should be annoyed, so why wasn’t she?

She didn’t understand herself, and Constanze _hated_ not understanding herself.

 

Akko sat carefully on the table with her two teammates. Constanze had casted an invisibility spell for the exoskeleton, but that didn’t take away the fact that she was still a superhuman danger.

“Akko, were where you all day?” Lotte asked. “I’m sorry I didn’t help you with potions.” She looked down. Akko cocked her head before realizing what she meant.

“Oh, no, Lotte, it’s fine.” She smiled awkwardly. “I wasn’t angry or anything, I just had… Other things to do.” She couldn’t mention what she had actually done. In fact, she had completely forgotten about the potions class. She would need to get back to that.

“You didn’t make anything blow up, did you?” Sucy asked as she ate a fried potato. There was a time in the past where Akko loved fries. After eating nothing but potatoes for an entire year in Luna Nova, that love had vanished. Still, she started to eat. At least now they also ate meat and vegetables at least three times a week, since students had started to flood in thanks to her hijinks.

“Why is that the first thing you think?” Akko said offended. Sucy shrugged, making her even angrier. However, as she was about to continue with the questioning, something changed. The world didn’t really slow down, but she felt like it did. _‘Trouble,’_ the voice said in her head. _‘Help,’_ it continued, and for some reason Akko instantly knew what was happening.

She spun on her chair, raising her hands before her eyes could even see what she was doing, and stood just in time to catch a tray of food and a girl tripping. That girl being the tall and red-haired Sarah, who was now in at an awkward forty-five degrees, resting in one of Akko’s hands.

Sarah stood on her own. “Wow, Akko!” She said with a smile. “That was awesome!” She recovered her tray, and Akko felt strange. “How did you do it?”

“Well…” She was feeling… “It was just luck, I guess.” She smiled.

Great. That was it.

A few tables away, she noticed Constanze giving her a bad look. Akko threw a thumbs up at her, to ease her mind. No one would suspect a thing.

“Well, thanks anyways.” Sarah continued on her way, patting Akko on the shoulder. The brunette couldn’t help the smile that came to her face as she sat back down. Lotte and Sucy were looking at her intensely; Lotte with surprise, Sucy with amusement.

“W-what?” Akko suddenly grew self-conscious about what she had done.

“Nothing, just amazed that the clumsy and living wrecking ball Akko would be able to do that,” Sucy shrugged.

“Hey what’s that supposed to mean?!” Akko barked, forgetting her self-consciousness.

“Akko, your must admit,” Lotte tried to calm her down. “That was pretty impressive.”

The brunette considered the words for a second before smiling. “Yeah, it was, huh?” She looked over at Constanze, who was still looking at her with some worry. She looked cute, Akko believed.

 _I should probably be more careful,_ she thought.

 _‘No,’_ the voice on her head said. _‘Help. Hero.’_ Akko could feel the determination from it. It wasn’t just a comment, it was a plea. Or maybe a request.

 _You want me to be a hero?_ Akko thought, feeling it would be the correct way of communicating with the spirit that now basically possessed her body.

 _‘Yes. Hero. Superhero,’_ It said, and Akko felt the eagerness on the words. Maybe her emotions were connected to those of the spirit too, because the perspective of being a hero actually sounded pretty cool to her. _‘Cool. Hero. Help,’_  the spirit continued. Yes, it could work. But no, no. Constanze said the exoskeleton was dangerous, and she asked her to take it off. _‘Time. Now.’_ But if she thought about it, there couldn’t be harm in doing things like this while she still had it stuck to her body, right?

 Something must have shown through her expression, because Sucy and Lotte were eyeing her.

“What?” Akko asked.

“You just put on that face you make when you get ideas.” Sucy explained. Lotte nodded in agreement. “When you get ideas, things don’t end well.” She continued, snickering. Akko frowned, about to snap back at her, but stopped herself. She was a hero now, it was beneath her to get angry at jokes. Or something like that, probably.

“It’s nothing, really.” She said, shrugging. Neither of her teammates seemed satisfied with the answer, but they didn’t push the issue.

So, as she ate, she looked at Constanze again. She’d tell her what she was going to do as soon as they finished eating.

 

The next day Akko had already gotten herself a disguise.

When one of her classmates complained about forgetting something in her room, Akko, as stealthily as a knight in heavy armor, slipped out of the room and used a transformation spell on her clothes. Her ‘superhero suit’ was a tight, full-body purple and red costume that made her look like a bad-movie tier ninja. She appeared in the door, carrying what her classmate had forgotten just a minute later, and then ‘vanished’ and came back with her normal clothes a moment later.

Constanze saw this exchange and prayed to whatever god, old witch or demon that might be watching them for the patience to handle her. Luckily, no one seemed to notice what had happened. They wondered who the disguised person had been – Akko, thanks to all things magical, had not talked – but ended up not thinking too hard about it.

Then, during the following days, Akko would go on to solve all the little problems in her superhero persona. Helping people find what they had lost – The exoskeleton also enhanced her senses up to certain point, making her more aware of her surroundings –, carrying heavy things, cleaning blackboards and overall a bunch of mundane things that didn’t really need the title of ‘superhero’ to be done. Still, she looked happy.

From time to time, the brunette would look at Constanze and give her sudden thumbs up, which were more effective than the tiny witch was willing to admit. Somehow, seeing Akko be completely ok with the whole situation made Constanze less nervous.

Not that it helped with her unending feeling of utter failure. She still hadn’t gotten any ideas on how to take off the damn artifact short of just ripping it off and hope Akko didn’t die.

It was during an afternoon a week after the fiasco, as she sat studying on the library hoping to find some kind of magic to un-bind things, that Diana sat in front of her.

“Hello, Constanze.” She greeted in her ever polite tone. Constanze nodded in acknowledgement. “May I ask you something?” She asked. Again, Constanze nodded. Why would Diana want to speak to her? They barely interacted. “It’s about Akko’s new… Tool, you might say.”

Ah, of course the secret wouldn’t last long.


	3. Villain?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something weird happens at Luna Nova, and Akko investigates in her hero persona.  
> She's not very good at that, but pillow fights? Now she can get behind that....

In the darkness of the now empty workshop, a small shadow moved. If someone were there to see it, it’d be described as a faint outline of purple suggesting a shape but not fully realizing it.

This shadow moved towards a trunk in the corner of the room. It emanated jealousy, anger, sadness, a sense of betrayal and hate. The world had been unfair to it.

As it slipped inside the trunk, not bothering to open it, its goal was all that guided it.

It started to merge with what was inside the trunk, hateful. It would get what it had lost back, and nothing or no one was going to stop it.

 

Constanze finally looked up, trying to figure out how Diana had figured it out.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I promise I won’t tell the teachers, as long as Akko isn’t causing some big mess or another. But, well, when she came to help me out when carrying those books earlier today…” She must have seen the expression Constanze was making, for she rolled her eyes. “What? It was _obviously_ miss Kagari inside that suit, don’t even try to deny it.”

Constanze shrugged. Diana was not an idiot, and she knew Akko well enough to see right through her – not really good – disguise.

“Going back to what I was saying, I used a perception spell, and saw the metal that was bound to her body. I don’t know if this is an insult or praise to you, but I had no doubts about the fact that it was your creation. May I ask _what_ it is?” She had a curious expression, and Constanze could see the hunger for knowledge on her eyes. While originally Diana was not a fan of the mixture of magic and technology, after the events with the missile last year she had slowly opened up to the possibilities. Now days she was particularly interested in the possibilities of mixing magic with modern medical equipment, which was probably what had lead her to ask Constanze about an artifact that augmented the body to such levels.

After considering for a while, Constanze decided that if there was someone who might be able to help with the problem, that could be Diana, so she started to explain. Due to the fact that they had spoken very little, it was particularly hard for the blonde girl to understand her, so it took a long time.

 

In the darkness of the now empty workshop, a small shadow moved. If someone were there to see it, it’d be described as a faint outline of purple suggesting a shape but not fully realizing it.

This shadow moved towards a trunk in the corner of the room. It emanated jealousy, anger, sadness, a sense of betrayal and hate. The world had been unfair to it.

As it slipped inside the trunk, not bothering to open it, its goal was all that guided it.

It started to merge with what was inside the trunk, hateful. It would get what it had lost back, and nothing or no one was going to stop it.

 

Akko transformed into her superhero clothes and went out on patrol. Not that she needed to, but the spirit kept prompting her to do so.

She wasn’t really focused on her duty as she daydreamed while walking through the school grounds. Some girls eyed her, but for some reason nobody really dared speak to her. Akko believed that was because they were so stunned by her amazing suit that they froze when trying to.

Well, she was right in the fact that the suit had something to do with it, in any case.

The sky, half blue and half orange as the afternoon sun made the clouds shine, slowly drove her body into an automatic mode where she walked mindlessly. She was now walking near the cafeteria area, where a bunch of students sat, either in the grass or against trees, relaxing.

And then she heard a scream.

The world, as she was growing used to, appeared to slow down. _‘Trouble. Help,’_ said the now familiar voice of the exoskeleton’s spirit. It appeared to have better sight than Akko, for it made her look towards the sky, where a redhead had fallen from her broom. Next to her another object was falling, but she didn’t pay it much mind.

Akko ran at incredible speeds and jumped, catching the girl ten feet before she hit the ground. The girl turned out to be Amanda, and her broom soon crashed against the trees nearby. Akko landed, barely feeling anything in her legs as she absorbed the impact of both herself and the redhead. “There.” She said in an exaggerated low-pitched voice, letting Amanda on the ground. “Be more careful next time, young lady.”

“Hey, that was _not_ my fault, Akko.” Amanda scoffed. “Someone threw a pillow at me!” She pointed behind Akko where, indeed, a pillow rested. It was a normal, white pillow. The kind the students used. Akko didn’t hesitate to believe the claim. It was Amanda after all, she would _never_ fall from her broom on her own. “And it was a damn good pitcher too, the thing almost snaps my neck.”

 _‘Culprit. Bad. Villain,’_ the spirit said. It had a very simple mind. Of course, Akko didn’t really believe there was a ‘villain’ or anything like that, but someone _had_ thrown this pillow, whether they had wanted to hit Amanda or not.

Then, something in Akko’s head caught up to what Amanda had said.

“Hey, wait, how do you know who I am?” Akko asked, stunned. Amanda rolled her eyes.

“Akko, I think everyone knows who you are, we just don’t talk about it to avoid making things awkward.” She explained. The brunette opened her mouth, but no words came out. “Though you _have_ to tell me what spell you’re using to do all this crazy stuff, it looks cool as heck.”

Akko laughed nervously, trying to avoid Amanda’s gaze. The students surrounding them were pointedly ignoring them, which only confirmed further what Amanda had said. Well, now Akko felt stupid. Not that it was a new feeling for her, anyways.

“Aaanyways.” Akko said. “Did you see who threw it?”

Amanda shook her head, shrugging. “No idea, though I think it was on the second floor.”

Akko nodded, starting to walk towards there. “I’ll go check it out, you stay here.” She said, and then she took off at a run.

“If you ever want a sidekick, I’m open to the idea!” She heard Amanda shout, though it sounded like she was teasing.

Before reaching the wall, Akko jumped up to the second floor window without any trouble, and then used her momentum to run a few more steps up the wall before reaching forth and grabbing a windowsill, pulling herself up and opening the window to one of the school stores.

Time to do some investigating, or something like that.

 

The girl sat in the dim light of her room, panting. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t even think properly. Something kept interfering with her brain. She didn’t understand what was going on around her, or why was she wearing those metallic contraptions around her body, or why her hands glowed purple.

_‘Back. Get back. Come back. Why. Don’t. Back.’_

She was not thinking that, yet she felt as if she was. She was angry, she felt betrayed. She wanted to destroy everything, though she didn’t get why. She was practicing martial arts and then something had attacked her. That was the last clear memory she had. From then on, nothing but blurry dreamlike memories flooded her mind.

She swore some of those weren’t even hers.

 

There were no pillows in this floor.

Akko had searched almost every room, not really sure from where the pillow had been thrown, in hopes of finding a pillow-less bed and therefore discovering who the culprit was. She hadn’t thought, however, that maybe all pillows would be gone. Only one room remained, and it was Diana’s. Akko didn’t think she’d be the culprit, but then again, maybe the perpetrator was hiding there, and she needed to finish because dinner would come soon. So slowly she approached the door at the end of the corridor and knocked.

The door burst open, breaking free of its hinges, and Akko barely had time to bend back, letting it fly over her. Surprised, she stood up, and saw who had broken it.

“Lin-Lin?” She asked, surprised. But something was off. ‘ _Beware. Enemy. Danger.’_

Then, Akko noticed what was weird. From Lin-Lin’s sleeves came out tiny metal rods that adhered to her hands and fingers. Something akin to a metal bowl covered her head as a sort of funny looking helmet, and her eyes were glowing with a pale purple light. She had a confused expression, but didn’t say anything.

Lin-Lin moved. She jumped back into the room, where all the missing pillows lay in a pile in the middle of it, and stood behind the pile. She picked up a pillow and threw it.

It hit Akko in the chest with such strength that it made her stumble. The pillow exploded in a mess of feathers, and then another one took Akko’s leg, tripping her and making her go face-first into the floor, only her enhanced reflexes saving her as she used an arm to catch herself and using that same arm to push herself back, further down the corridor.

Once outside the feather cloud, she could see Lin-Lin with another couple of pillows in her hands. _Pillow fight? Let’s do this!_ Akko thought, smiling.

Lin-Lin threw another pillow, but this time Akko was prepared and reacted. She stepped to the side, catching it mid-air and spun in the reduced space, throwing it back at the pitcher. The Chinese girl, however, threw the other pillow she had, and both pillows collided mid-air, exploding into another cloud of feathers.

With her vision hindered, Akko stood very still, alert. As she thought, a few seconds later two pillows shot out of the feathers at full speed. She would not be able to throw them back, so instead she ducked to avoid the first and – since the second came lower, Lin-Lin apparently thinking she could predict Akko’s moves – punching the next one, which exploded again.

At this rate, Akko would destroy all the pillows, and that was a no-go. She shot forward, running towards the pillow thrower through the narrow corridor, stepping to the side, ducking and jumping over the pillows that were thrown at her.

As she reached the door, she deflected one with her hand, destroying it too, and jumped past the feathers in the air, hand forward, ready to take Lin-Lin’s hand and subdue her.

Lin-Lin bent back, seeing the move coming, and jumped. Her feet left the ground as her arms were used for support, doing a full backwards-cartwheel that placed a very precise kick on Akko’s chest, throwing her through the door again. The brunette fell in the corridor full of feathers but got up instantly just in time to see Lin-Lin running towards the open window of the room and jumping out.

Akko rushed towards the window, but it was too late. As she looked down, the Chinese girl was already lost into the moonless night.

 _I think I need to talk to Constanze about this,_ she thought.

 

When Constanze and Diana reached the corridor on the east side of the second floor, they froze.

Akko was walking back through a sea of feathers, empty pillows and pillowcases with a pensive look. Someone had run to warn Diana about the fight in her room and both girls had rushed here. Neither of them were surprised to find the Japanese girl in the middle of it all.

Something took over the tiny girl as she moved towards the brunette. Akko stopped as she saw her. “Oh, hi Constanze.” She said. “I think you need to hear…”

Constanze raised a hand, hushing her. Then, taking the small console she always carried around – slightly inspired in Croix’s magitech devices –, she wrote ‘Are you ok?’

She didn’t know why she was so worried. When she heard that Akko was in a fight, she had felt her heart drop to her stomach. But that was silly, Akko had the exoskeleton, nothing short of a rifle could have really harmed her. Still, the worry was not a feeling she could overlook, so she decided to take it out of the way first.

“Ah? Oh, yes. Lin-Lin kicked pretty hard, though.” She rubbed her chest.

Diana finally snapped out of her surprise, walking forward. “Would you mind explaining what happened here, Akko?” She said. She didn’t sound angry, just resigned.

Akko nodded and explained.

As she described Lin-Lin’s weird metallic attire, Constanze's pressure dropped more and more. She recognized it, of course.

It was one of the prototypes.

She stopped Akko in her story, grabbing her hand and pointing towards her room. For a second, Akko looked confused, but she caught up to what she meant fast enough.

Akko then took Constanze, comfortably putting her below her arm.

“But why would Lin-Lin do that?” Diana asked, hand in her chin, thinking.

“I don’t think she was in control.” Akko replied. Constanze thanked the Nine Olde Witches that no one else was in the corridor to see her embarrassing state. Not that she minded being grabbed by Akko like this. “But come on, Cons, let’s go.” She said. “We’ll catch you up to speed later, Diana.” Akko nodded to the blonde, and ran.

Constanze felt the wind in her face, and her heart raced. Each turn Akko made gave her a momentary heart attack, since it always looked like she wouldn’t be able to stop. She always did, and in less than thirty seconds they were in the green team’s room. Constanze suspected Akko had actually held back to avoid harming her.

They dropped down to her secret workshop and once Akko let her down, she ran towards the trunk in one of the corners, the one that supposedly held all of the failed prototypes. Versions of the exoskeleton that had been either too dysfunctional or dangerous to work.

As she feared, it was empty.


	4. Marbles.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Constanze, Akko and company try to come up with a plan to beat Lin-Lin.  
> What will they do?

“Lin-Lin didn’t even know of the existence of this place.” Akko said, sitting in the floor while Constanze looked through some documents.

“What I can’t believe is that Constanze had something that cool and didn’t let me test it.” Amanda said. She was laying on her back on the couch.

“Amanda, I believe that is not the problem here. What we need to know is why someone would break in here to steal failed prototypes, only to use them against Akko.” Diana said. She was standing, looking around and trying not to appear too awed by the fact that this was under school and she didn’t know it.

_‘Know. Brother. Friend,’_ Akko heard in her head. Slowly, she came to understand what the words meant, as if the spirit was passing knowledge through their connection.

“The spirit says… It has a brother, or something like that,” Akko said, closing her eyes. She tried to concentrate on what the spirit was trying to communicate. “They have a connection, but… The spirit on my exoskeleton wanted to be a superhero, so its brother got jealous. They separated, and my spirit found Constanze and they formed an agreement. The one who took over Lin-Lin seems to be its brother.” She explained. They all looked at her with raised eyebrows. “What? It told me!”

Diana nodded. “So it’s basically a vengeful spirit out to get Akko because she’s teamed up with this spirit. What we need to do is banish it and-” _‘No. Vanish. Friend,’_ The spirit sounded very loud in Akko’s head.

“No, Diana, no banishing.” Akko shook her head.

“Well, we need to do something before we run out of pillows.” Amanda smirked. Diana rolled her eyes, explaining that mess without giving away the real reason had been complicated. Akko eyed Constanze as she looked over her documents. She didn’t know exactly why but she had been meaning to apologize. Maybe it was because she had called way too much attention to herself when she should have kept a low profile.

Suddenly, Constanze made a triumphant noise and came back to them with a couple of sheets of paper. Akko looked at them. Blueprints for the stolen prototypes. Akko instantly recognized the one Lin-Lin was wearing, with the bowl-like helmet and the metals that went all the way down to the fingers. Luckily the spirit hadn’t decided to punch Akko, those things looked hard. “This was it.” She commented, and Constanze stuck to her back to see it.

Then, she grunted in acknowledgement and took off her wand. Suddenly, from the ceiling, a big blackboard came down, and Constanze started to write things.

She could only use the lower half of it. “Here, let me help.” Akko said, smiling and picking up Constanze. The tiny witch blushed, but didn’t fight as she started to write, guiding Akko around. Of course, to the brunette, holding Constanze like this was basically nothing. In a few minutes, Constanze had laid out in white chalk the specifications of the exoskeleton prototype.

Diana and Amanda studied it. Amanda soon realized she understood nothing, going back to the couch, but Diana constantly nodded as she looked over the writings. Akko didn’t understand a thing either.

“It’s dangerous. If anyone uses it for long, their tendons and ligaments could be snapped. Despite being technically weaker than Akko’s, it’s unable to regulate itself in any way.” Diana explained for Constanze, who nodded. “Akko is unconsciously holding herself back and the spirit respects her wishes, while the one who took possession of Lin-Lin is taking full advantage of her capabilities... And more.”

“Well, thanks for the exposition, Diana.” Amanda stood. “What we need to know is how to beat it before it decides the next thing it wants to throw at Akko are knives.” She crossed her arms, looking harshly at the board, as if that were going to help somehow. “How about we just throw a magic-nullifier spell at it?”

Constanze shook her head. She pointed at a notation near the bottom of the blackboard. Diana read it and understood. “This prototype is magic resistant. It creates a kind of anti-magic aura around its user, but it also stops the user itself from doing magic, which would explain why it didn’t run out of it after some time. Only the exoskeleton will work... And apparently Akko’s too, since they are similar enough.”

Everyone stood in silence for a while. Akko knew the capabilities of the exoskeleton; she knew fully well how hard it’d be to actually beat. “Isn’t there some way to separate the spirit and Lin-Lin? It only works because of the connection, right?” She suggested.

Constanze’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped for a few seconds. Then, she smiled and snapped her fingers, as if saying ‘that’s it!’

Then, she went to the blackboard and used her wand to point at the headpiece. She looked intensely at the others. “The head piece is important?” Akko asked, doubtful. Constanze rolled her eyes and nodded.

“It’s where the spirit resides, right? At least in that prototype.” Diana cocked her head, and Constanze nodded, this time with more energy. Everyone thought for a while until the navy-blue haired girl just face-palmed and wrote something else on the blackboard. ‘Take it off.’

“Take it off? Wait, you can take _that one_ off but not mine?” Akko frowned, and Constanze blushed, looking down in shame. “No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just, I assumed all of them would have the same flaw and all…” Akko cringed. She had actually kind of meant it that way, after all. But that was not the point here! “Anyways, then I just have to take the helmet off? That won’t hurt her, right?”

Constanze shook her head and gave her a thumbs up, smiling.

“This is all well and good, but I need to ask, what will happen to the spirit?” Diana decided to sit down in the couch. It had been cleaned during the week, as Constanze had used that time to think. “As long as it’s in possession of the exoskeleton it will be a threat.”

No one answered her. Akko had absolutely no ideas. Diana and Constanze thought for a while.

“How about Lotte’s song?” Akko suggested. “She can make the spirits come out of anything she wants.”

Constanze shook her head and slid a finger across her throat, pointing at Akko. “Oh, it would affect me too and kill me?” The German girl nodded with an apologetic look. Akko sighed, and then they went back to thinking.

Unexpectedly, Amanda was the one to perk up. “Well, don’t know if it’ll work, but I know a particular spell that can unlock even anti-magic locks. Maybe, if Akko manages to take off the thing from Lin-Lin, I can use it to break the anti-magic barrier and then we can blast the hell out of it with magic-nullifier spells.” She looked kind of hesitant to say this. Akko suspected it was probably because it wasn’t a spell one used to do good things.

Diana raised her eyebrows, surprised. “And then we could catch it, well thought.” She said, sounding slightly amused. Constanze considered this and nodded, humming in the low. The tiny witch walked up to Akko and, without even hesitating, punched her. Akko felt nothing, but she still stepped back, confused. Constanze, however, nodded approvingly.

“Well, there’s only one thing left to do, then.” Diana looked at Akko. “We need to draw Lin-Lin out of her hiding place.”

Akko didn’t like the look she was giving her.

 

“Oh boy!” Akko shouted. “I sure like being a superhero! This is the most fun I’ve ever had, isn’t that right, little spirit?!” She was walking through the school grounds, roughly around the area where Lin-Lin had disappeared, walking a few steps away from the forest’s limit.

‘Spirits have simple minds,’ Diana had explained. ‘You just need to appeal to its desires to lure it out.’

And so, there she was, crying out in hopes of luring a spirit-possessed exoskeleton that had basically kidnapped a student, walking around the forest at night and, maybe more importantly, praying that no teacher realized what was going on.

Not that praying ever helped anyone, for as soon as looked back, she saw the silhouette of a teacher she recognized fully well holding a magic lamp.

“Akko.” Chariot, the red-haired gentle astrology teacher, also Akko’s biggest idol, looked at her with a mix of curiosity and resignation. “What are you doing?”

Akko gulped. Should she tell her? Everyone in school knew anyways, but she didn’t want to get Constanze in trouble. But telling Chariot wouldn’t get anyone in trouble, right? After all, she was basically one of them.

“If I tell you, can you promise you won’t get us into trouble?” Akko asked, trying to make some more time to think. Chariot raised an eyebrow.

“So you did something bad?” She asked.

“What? No!” Seems like the time to think wouldn’t come after all. “I just…”

Chariot chuckled. “Let’s do this,” She interrupted, smiling. “If you tell me what you’re doing I promise I won’t tell other teachers, but I might punish you myself.”

Akko stopped to consider this for a second. The teacher had changed over the past year. She was more assertive, she looked happier. After the events of the Missile Crisis she had left behind her shy and timid Ursula persona, but she certainly hadn’t gone back to being the cheerful idol she used to be. Still, she was Akko’s role model in life, and despite everything that had gone down, the person she looked up to the most, both as her idol and teacher personas.

“Well…” Akko explained as shortly as she could. Chariot listened with patience until she finished. By then, her gentle smile had been replaced by a harsh expression.

“Akko, I understand why you didn’t tell us teachers,” Chariot started. “But you should have told an adult. What if you had gotten yourself or others hurt?” She lectured. “Maybe we would have chastised you, but is that seriously more important than your safety?” She shook her head. “I’m not angry, but you need to understand-”

_‘Danger. Beware,’_ the voice in Akko’s head said, and she stopped listening. Her senses got sharper, and instantly she heard rustling in the forest and a knock on wood. Something flashed.

Without hesitating, she jumped forward, pushing Chariot, who yelped with surprise, to the ground. She didn’t see what had been thrown, but it looked dangerous.

When she stood up again, no one was there She was on edge, focused on her enhanced senses. The forest didn’t look as dark and mysterious, and she heard every little sound around her. She could even pick up the faint scent of perfume coming from Chariot. Something hit wood to her right and she turned right in time to see a small projectile thrown her way. Was that… a marble?

Still, thrown at such speed, it could be quite, quite dangerous. Akko wasn’t sure if it could kill but it would sure as hell hurt. A lot. Even if she was wearing the exoskeleton. Ducking out of the way of the marble, she jumped forward into the trees, only to find that there was no one standing in the place where the marble had been thrown according to her senses.

Then, she heard another couple of knocks on wood behind her, turning right on time to see two marbles flying at her, despite the fact that no one in sight. No room to jump to the sides thanks to trees, the only way to avoid them was to duck. But, like with the pillows, as soon as she ducked another series of knockings against trees was heard, marbles coming straight towards her forehead. With no punching as an option this time, she felt things slow down even further.

One by one, she deviated the marbles mid-air – trying to grab them would be too risky, so she just tapped them – and, one by one, they missed her for barely a centimeter.

Until one of them hit her in the back. Where the hell was Lin-Lin hiding?

The pain was sharp. Unlike the half assed kick Lin-Lin had given her before escaping, this was a serious shot with the intent to hurt. It hit Akko right in the kidney, and she couldn’t help but cry out in pain and bring her hand to her side. _I need a plan, right now, or I’m not going to make it,_ she thought. _A plan to lure her out, to make her approach me…_ And then something clicked.

This distracted her. She heard rattling from the trees around her.

She smiled, preparing herself.

 

No one else could see what had happened. Amanda and Diana looked at the forest from their hiding spot near the school building, behind some bushes, barely lit by Chariot’s lamp, with frowns. Constanze, however, had her night-vision goggles on, and she saw how Akko was being attacked, even if the brunette couldn’t.

The spirit wasn’t as dumb as they had assumed. It was using some kind of projectile Constanze couldn’t make out, but she _did_ see that Lin-Lin was barely moving from her place a few meters away from Akko.

The way she directed all her attacks was making the projectiles ricochet against the tree trunks, not giving away her position. Akko was faring fairly well against her, dodging and deflecting.

Until one of them hit.

And a lot followed. Amanda and Diana didn’t see it, but Constanze watched in horror as a rush of something hit Akko all over, making her cry out and fall to the ground, disappearing from view.

“What was that?” Amanda said, standing up.

“It sounded like Akko…” Diana commented, sounding worried. “Think she’s fine?” She hesitated to move forward.

“Maybe we should, but then Chariot would see us too-”

She was cut off by Constanze, who, after coming out of her surprise, jumped forward and run towards where she saw Akko fall. “Constanze, wait!” Amanda cried from behind her, but Constanze wasn’t listening. Why had she allowed Akko to do this? Lin-Lin’s physical abilities were far beyond Akko’s, even if the exoskeleton was weaker, it would probably even out in favor of the Chinese girl. She should have told her, or considered the possibilities, or just waited to come up with a better plan! She was normally so thorough with her ideas, but she was shaken by the stolen items and Akko was holding her up and everything was so fuzzy in her mind right now!

She jumped over Chariot, who kept herself down through the fight, earning a surprised exclamation.

Tripping a couple times in the forest, scraping her hands and knees, she didn’t stop until she reached the brunette, who was lying on her back on the floor.

She knelt beside her, but hesitated to do anything else. What if she was badly hurt and her touch made things worse? Her goggles allowed her to see that Akko wasn’t bleeding or anything, but she had her eyes closed. Constanze felt rage built up inside her. Why had she kept those failures around? Such an idiot! What if some other evil spirit took possession of them and used them to hurt people?

A step behind her snapped her out of her thoughts.

She was now the target.

 

Akko snapped her eyes open as soon as she heard Lin-Lin close enough. _Now I got you!_ She thought, rising her hand, pushing Constanze down and throwing herself up with the other, surprising Lin-Lin and the spirit.

The marbles had hurt, but they didn’t break any bones, so Akko would probably just find herself with a lot of bruises later. This didn’t stop her from the jump she performed now, hand going directly for the helmet on top of Lin-Lin’s head.

Lin-Lin just barely moved her head, taking it out of the way of Akko’s hand, and punched Akko in the stomach, making her fly back and hit a tree. Akko’s air left her lungs in the hit, and she fell to her knees and hands, trying to catch her breath.

_She’s a martial artist,_ Akko thought. _I can’t win on a one on-one fight._

Lin-Lin approached, looking down on her. Akko still wasn’t recovered, and right as she expected Lin-Lin to kick her while she was down, the Chinese girl instead leaned and took Akko by the nape.

Or, more precisely, by the exoskeleton’s neckpiece.

Akko screamed in pain as Lin-Lin started to pull, using one of her feet to keep Akko down. “You’re going to rip my head off!” Akko managed to say. It was as if someone were grabbing her very nervous system and trying to pull it off with their hand. _‘Fight! Resist! Courage!’_ The spirit cried, obviously in pain too. Akko tried to use her hands, but from this position she had absolutely no way of actually affecting Lin-Lin.

“Murowa!” Akko heard in a voice she recognized, and suddenly the forest was lit with green light. Lin-Lin jumped out of the way of the simple attack spell, letting Akko go.

The brunette managed to stand up, panting, as another spell shot out of Diana’s wand. Lin-Lin avoided it again, obviously unaware of her immunity to magic, looking at Akko, as if to attack again. Then Amanda appeared from the tree leaves above and landed a dropkick on Lin-Lin. It didn’t seem to bother her much, but it distracted her, making the possessed girl turn her head. A simple motion.

Simple enough for Akko to run. She felt a sudden surge of power, unlike the other times she had used the Exoskeleton, and she ran forward. She noticed that Amanda appeared to be hanging mid-air, not moving, and Diana was in the middle of casting another spell. She saw Constanze running towards Lin-Lin, as if to tackle her, and Chariot in the limit of the forest casting her own spell.

_‘NOW!’_  The spirit cried, and Akko’s hand shot forward without her permission and she jumped. Lin-Lin reacted one second too late, turning her attention back to her. She moved in what appeared to be normal speed for Akko, but normal speed was not enough.

Akko grabbed the headpiece while flying over Lin-Lin, pulling it off mid-air and landing behind her. Time returned to normal as Akko fell to the ground, pulling the Chinese girl down with her. Where she was standing an instant before two spells passed, Constanze ran past – tripping in her surprise – and Amanda fell to the ground butt-first.

“Amanda, now!” Akko shouted. Amanda got it and without hesitating took out her wand, casting a spell Akko didn’t recognize and sticking it in the helmet. For a second, the helmet appeared to resist, but then, with a small puff of magic energy, it gave out. Touching it, Akko could actually feel the sudden release of magic.

It didn’t take a full second before Diana and Constanze blasted Lin-Lin with a magic-nullifier spell.

A cloud of dissipated magic rose, and within it, Akko saw something. A silhouette, moving, glowing purple with eyes full of hate. _‘Brother. Come. Friend,’_ The spirit in Akko’s head called, and her hand moved forward, trying to reach the silhouette.

The thing growled, a deep, menacing noise that somehow reverberated through the forest, and disappeared.

Silence followed, broken by the relieved sighs of the girls.

That was, until Constanze approached Akko, giving her a worried look. Akko stood, grunting from the pain she felt… Well, everywhere, and smiled at the short girl. “Well, I think I saved the day.” The brunette said.

Constanze face went from worried, to angry, to relieved.

She started to tear up, and she ran forward to hug Akko. Taken aback, Akko didn’t know what to do, so she patted Constanze’s head as she sobbed. “There, there, it’s fine now.”

Slowly, Akko found the confidence to hug back Constanze, kneeling to be on her level. Constanze was surprisingly warm, and the brunette felt herself slowly growing self-conscious about how long the hug was lasting.

“And now, I think we need to talk.” Chariot approached, breaking the mood.


	5. Recovering.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One threat dealt with!  
> One of many, it seems.

Akko finished scrubbing the entire third floor in barely an hour, it being the last thing she had to do, and she was holding herself back.

Chariot had kept her promise of not telling the other teachers, but her punishment had been quite severe. Scrub the school’s floor. Every last bit of it. While working, Constanze followed her, helping Akko do it in the most effective way possible. Supposedly she was also to scrub the floor, but Akko had taken her job too. Akko pointedly tried not to look at her. She still remembered the hug they’d had last night, and she still wasn’t sure why Constanze had cried.

“I don’t get it,” Amanda complained. “Why do I have to paint this? I had nothing to do with the exoskeleton ordeal!” She had been doing so all morning. She had been assigned to re-paint a lot of old blackboards.

“Well, I must admit, as my first punishment since I was five, this is a lot simpler than I expected,” Diana commented, calm and collected as always. Her job was to rebuild broken chairs.

Akko noticed she was using her wand.

“Diana!” Akko cried. “You’re not supposed to use magic during punishments!” She moved faster than Diana would have ever been able to react to snatch the wand from her hand.

“Oh, right,” she blushed a little. “I was so used to…” She cleared her throat. “Ok, I’ll do it correctly from now on.” She picked another chair, struggling. Akko held back a laugh.

Now that her job was done, she didn’t really have anything to do until afternoon classes started, so she decided to go talk with Sucy and Lotte. They were already up to date on what had happened, but for some reason it felt like ages since she’d last spoken to them.

Constanze followed her.

 

The tallest student in Luna Nova was minding her own business in the school grounds. Someone had sneaked a magazine explaining the details of everything going on in the MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) world last month. She wished she could see it by herself, but for the moment, the paper and raw data would have to do.

However, as she walked with the magazine in her hand, not entering the forest but staying close to it for shade, she heard something from the trees.

She turned her head right in time to see something extremely weird. It was… A stickman, but it was made out of metal. It had thick metal rods as arms and legs, and an even thicker central piece connecting them together.

The metal stickman launched itself at her, apparently trying to head-butt her with its weird ring of a head.

Letting go of the magazine, she stood on guard, and as the stickman got close, she raised a leg and turned her hips, throwing a powerful kick that caught the thing right where the temples should have been in a normal person. In a human, that would have probably knocked them out.

This time, however, the girl felt the sharp pain of hitting something hard in the bridge of her foot.

She tried to recover, but the metal stickman wasn’t stopped by the kick, and reached her.

Its ring was placed around her head, and everything went black.

 

“Ehm, Akko?” Lotte was attempting to read, but something distracted her.

“Yah?” Akko was pointedly ignoring this fact, sitting on her bed and lazily flipping through an old book that she wasn’t really interested in.

“Why is Constanze doing… That?” Lotte asked. Sucy had been watching Akko with curiosity for a while now, but she seemed to find amusing not to comment on it.

Constanze, sitting next to Akko, had stuck a lot of electrodes around her body. All the cables were connected to a little device she had in her hands, and it beeped to the rhythm of Akko’s heart. The beeping was rather fast, giving out how Akko actually felt being half naked next to the blue haired girl.

“She’s just checking for my vitals and stuff,” Akko tried to act nonchalant. In her mind, this worked somewhat like ‘If you don’t look, it’s not there.’ If she didn’t pay attention to Constanze, then no one would actually notice her.

The strategy had obviously failed. The beeping was impossible to ignore, as was Akko’s increasingly red face.

Her body was covered in bruises. Luckily, they were now better than they had been in the early morning, since she was healing rather fast thanks to her increased body capabilities. Still, as she shifted in place, she grunted at the stab of pain in her stomach, where Lin-Lin had punched her good. The Chinese girl hadn’t woken up yet, but Diana had explained her mind was just exhausted. Luckily, the exoskeleton hadn’t actually hurt her that much, though she was going to have sore muscles. 

At the grunt, Constanze looked at her. Akko knew she felt guilty, but she couldn’t do anything to help. She had tried, of course, to explain to Constanze that it had been an accident and not her fault. Not that it changed anything, the flaw in the design of the exoskeleton was what made Constanze really mad, and then she had left her prototypes unguarded and Akko had been hurt because of it, kinda. Naturally, this made Akko felt impotent. How to help her friend understand that none of this was her fault?

Yet, in her heart, Akko felt warm whenever she saw the short girl worrying so much about her. It was a strange dichotomy.

“Oh, and how are you feeling?” Lotte asked after a moment of deliberation.

“I’m fine, really,” Akko said, trying to hide her pain. “I’m just a little tired from all the cleaning I did.”

“Can you even get tired with that thing attached to your body?” Sucy asked. She had something in her hand. A kind of plant Akko didn’t recognize. She was afraid to ask.

“Of course I can. It’s just harder,” the brunette explained. Sucy smirked, making Akko instinctively want to hide. Nothing good ever came out of Sucy smiling.

At that moment, Constanze touched Akko’s shoulder, letting her know she was done. Akko nodded, and stood up to allow Constanze to take off the electrodes.

Constanze took her sweet time. Something that should have taken at best a minute took about five. Constanze brushed Akko’s skin every time she took one off, she did it slowly, almost reverently. Akko felt chills from Constanze’s fingertips, and when she was finally done, Akko sighed in relief instinctively.

She put her shirt back on and layed back on her bed. She wasn’t lying when she said she was tired, but it wasn’t from the cleaning. The pain, the stress and the confusing feelings stirring up inside her, most of them focused on Constanze, teamed up to just drain her energy.

_‘Recover. Deserving. Hero,’_ the spirit said. Akko closed her eyes, feeling the bed sink where Constanze sat near her hips. Still, she found sleep elusive. The evil spirit was still out there, and it had stolen another three prototypes. Where they were was still a mystery to all of them, but Akko was sure they’d find them soon enough.

Hopefully before anyone else was affected by things.

 

Constanze looked Akko sleep, feeling strangely calm. She had been worrying all morning, but seeing the brunette’s peaceful face put her mind at ease. If she could sleep like that, then things probably weren’t that bad. Still, her mind wandered, never stopping from trying to come up with a plan to get Akko’s exoskeleton off. After every single possibility had crossed her mind, the only valid one was to have the spirit willingly give up the connection.

But she could do nothing about that, whether she liked it or not. So, for now, she had to hope Akko wasn’t going to be hurt. It was hard, but maybe this was a punishment for her mistakes. She longed to pull out Akko’s shirt and caress her dark spots. She tried to trick herself into thinking that it was only because she felt guilty for what had happened, but it was getting harder for her brain to ignore what her heart told her.

“You know, if you want some water, we can give it to you,” Sucy commented, now sitting in the desk, looking at her with a mischievous smile. “You don’t have to look so thirsty.”

Constanze snapped her attention back to reality, eyes widening. Had Sucy really read her that well? Or was she being particularly obvious? Not that there was anything to be obvious about, Akko was just a really good friend, of course.

Sucy snickered, going back to whatever she was doing in there. Looking up, Constanze also spotted Lotte, who was hanging upside down from the top of the bunk bed. The redhead smiled timidly and went back to her place, probably picking up the book she was reading. Constanze stood, ignoring the piece of her that told her to lie next to Akko and drift off to sleep too. She walked towards the door, ready to exit without looking at Sucy or Lotte, trying to appear offended but not _too_ offended.

She opened the door, and found a purple wall behind it.

When looking up, the wall turned out to be Verochka, the tall Russian girl. Constanze cocked her head, confused. Why was she…?

Then she saw the metal ring placed around her head, like a crown.

And her purple eyes.

Constanze turned around, intending to go wake Akko up, but Verochka took her by the back of her uniform and lifted her without effort. Constanze let out a yelp of surprise which got Sucy’s and Lotte’s attention.

Sucy took the glass of water in her desk and threw it on Akko’s face.

“Hey, what gives?!” Akko rose wiping her face and looked at Sucy with hate. “What was that f-” She shut up as the purple haired girl pointed at the door. The brunette took a second to fully understand the scene, as if she was considering if it was a dream or not.

Verochka showed Constanze to Akko, as if trying to tell her something, before throwing the tiny girl towards the brunette. Akko stood and caught her without much effort, though Constanze ended upside down. Without much time to think, Akko threw Constanze towards the top bunk bed as Verochka stepped into the room. Constanze lost sight of what was going on for a few seconds, but when she looked down, both girls were looking at each other carefully.

Constanze recognized the exoskeleton Verochka was using and panicked.

 

Akko saw Verochka swing. She wasn’t fast, like Lin-Lin had been. She was obviously wearing an exoskeleton, but maybe she wasn’t using it at full strength? In any case, the brunette easily raised an arm to block the punch. However, the second it touched her, she realized something was wrong.

It hurt. It hurt a lot. It hurt too much. Akko felt something crack.

With a scream of surprise, she jumped back and instinctively looked at Constanze, who crossed her arms, which Akko took as a sign not to block. The Russian girl threw a jab, but Akko easily dodged it and the following hook.

She decided that fighting inside would be too dangerous, so in a swift motion she dodged another punch and stepped around Verochka, going outside the room and taking off downstairs.

Verochka followed, but she was… Slow. When Akko had seen Lin-Lin run, she had been probably as fast as her, but this was a normal run. Well, an athletic one, fast for normal standards, but a _human_ one.

She didn’t think much about this, but she slowed down, to allow the Russian girl to follow. She was aware of the fact that the only reason she wasn’t on the ground in pain, crying for her arm, was adrenaline. She was surprised she still had adrenaline after yesterday’s events.

She reached the bottom of the stairs and took off towards the school entrance, drawing annoyed and surprised looks and cries, but not pausing to apologize or distracting herself. She regretted not studying some more about the other exoskeletons. She felt like an idiot. Falling asleep like that, the spirit couldn’t warn her of the danger. Constanze could’ve gotten seriously hurt if she wasn’t there. On the other hand, the spirit had probably only gone there because of Akko’s spirit in the first place, so… _Focus!_ Akko thought.

She went outside, where no one was in sight, and turned around to see Verochka. The tall girl was intimidating enough normally, but there was something about the absolutely neutral expression with glowing purple eyes that was just unnerving.

_‘Careful. Danger. Trouble,’_ the spirit said, and Akko resisted the urge to snap at it with a sarcastic comment.

Verochka took a stance. Akko didn’t recognize it, but she put her own battle stance – improvised one, since she didn’t really know any – and prepared to fight.

_‘Don’t do it, Akko!’_ Another voice said in her head. It wasn’t the spirit. At first, Akko was confused. She knew the voice, but she had trouble remembering from where. Verochka didn’t move, as if waiting for something. Something was strange about the voice, as if she wasn’t used to it but-

She placed the voice.

“Constanze?” She asked, dropping her stance and frowning. Was Constanze… Talking?

 

 


	6. Strength.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fight ends rather quickly, and the girls end up deciding to take action without their best asset.

_‘No, Akko, I’m not talking,’_ Constanze said in her mind. _‘Don’t get distracted. Verochka’s exoskeleton is used for pure strength. You won’t do anything to her if you try to hit her, and a single hit from her could knock you out easily. Still, you should be able to take it off by…’_

_Wait, if you’re not talking, what are you doing?_

_‘Focus! Akko, the headpiece won’t be enough to take it off this time. You need to pull it off directly from the main connection at the back of the head. But if you can’t, just stall for a while, we’re going to blast it with magic-nullifier spells, don’t worry.’_ Her speed at talking was fast. Too fast, Akko thought. She was desperate. Well, if Constanze talked, she was definitely desperate, though she had said she wasn’t talking, so what could she…

Verochka moved and Akko reacted just in time to avoid getting her face flattened by a kick. She dodged pretty easily. The Russian girl was slow to her perception, and Akko didn’t feel worried at all. She tried a quick punch, but as she suspected, the girl didn’t even flinch. The brunette moved quickly behind Verochka, soon seeing the small, purple-glowing point that was obviously the spot Constanze had pointed out. Without hesitating Akko reached forth with a smile. This had been easier than she had expect-

The pain came to her leg before Akko even saw what had happened. Verochka had… Predicted her moves, and thrown a simple back-kick that took Akko full in the shin. Hopefully, this time Akko didn’t feel anything break, but her leg was thrown backwards and she completely lost balance, her hand going astray and beyond Verochka’s head as the world turned ninety degrees.

Verochka spun, fist closed, ready to punch Akko mid-air in the chest. _If that hits it’s going to kill me!_ Akko thought, panicked. She was faster, but that was useless if her feet weren’t in the ground! Or, maybe she didn’t need the ground to move out of the way.

She kicked. It was as strong a kick as she could muster without anchor point, but it appeared to be enough, for she started to spin mid-air out of the way of the punch. She fell to the ground, using her good hand to get back up. Verochka was looking at her with cold, purple-glowing eyes. She didn’t seem to even notice the kick Akko had just landed.

_‘Verochka loves martial arts, Akko. Lin-Lin practiced tai-chi, but this is different. We’re only like thirty seconds away, hold on!’_ Constanze said in her head. Verochka took another stance, like if she were a boxer, and threw few jabs that Akko avoided without much effort.

Until a leg swept her from her feet. _What!_ She had used the jabs to distract her? How could someone moving so slow surprise her like this? It was getting ridiculous. Akko instantly moved to kick the Russian girl again, but somehow, Verochka was ready for this. When Akko’s leg moved, the tall girl’s hand was in the way, and it took Akko’s leg. Verochka spun and threw Akko into the air. While the brunette flew, she jumped after her, and Akko saw with surprise as she reached Akko’s height and raised a leg.

Verochka kicked down, hitting Akko in the gut, and her vision flashed white.

Akko cried out, feeling like she was going to puke. She crashed against the ground, hitting her head, and everything got blurry. The ground hadn’t hurt as much as the kick. She couldn’t think beyond a basic understanding that, at this rate, she was not going to make it.

_‘Akko!’_ Constanze cried, noticing Akko’s jumbled thoughts. Verochka landed in front of Akko. Then, a voice sounded. A deep, hateful voice that reverberated in the air.

**‘Come back now,’** it said. Akko, in her confusion, didn’t understand. Come back where? Home? No, this wasn’t her mother. Was it? Where was she, again?

‘Don’t. Here. Happy,’ The brunette heard the usual voice the spirit used, but this time it was real. Not in her head, the spirit was talking out loud, somehow. Then she realized it was her mouth that was moving. Verochka grunted, saying nothing as she stepped forward, preparing to kick Akko while she was down.

At that moment, a green light appeared in the entrance of the school, and a spell flew towards them. The Russian girl jumped to the side, avoiding the spell that flew over Akko. Constanze, Sucy and Lotte were standing there, and the three of them casted magic-nullifier spells aiming them directly at Verochka.

None of them hit. Verochka, even if still human, had great reflexes. She dodged and, aiming a last hateful look at Akko, took off towards the trees. Akko saw all of this happen, but didn’t process any of it. Unaware of where she even was, she slowly allowed the pain to take over.

She closed her eyes.

 

“She’ll be fine, but don’t expect her to wake up anytime soon.” Diana said, stepping out of the read team’s room, where Constanze, Lotte, Sucy, Amanda and Jasminka waited. They all sighed in relief, particularly Constanze, who had basically been holding her breath since she had felt the way Akko’s thoughts had gone astray after how she hit her head.

She stepped forth, looking at Diana with clear intention. Diana hesitated for a moment, but nodded, stepping aside and letting Constanze into the room. “I fixed her bones and healed her for the most part, but for now her body should do the rest.” Diana explained. Constanze nodded. Akko looked fine, which was a relief.

After the mental connection she’d formed, Akko still had gone and tried to fight. She shouldn’t have told her where the weakness of the suit was. A warning would have been enough, telling her not to fight and wait would have been enough. Akko had the speed to do that, she only got hurt because she got close. Because of Constanze.

Constanze stood besides Akko. For some reason, no-one else entered the room.

She sat down on the bed, sighing. It was strange, how calm she felt. Maybe it was like a circle, she had gotten so worried that now she was ok, or something. She brought a hand up, rubbing her temple.

_I know you can hear me,_ She thought.

_‘Asleep. Can’t,’_ the spirit spoke from Akko’s mind.

Constanze rested her arms on her knees and kept her breathing under control. _I’m talking to you, not Akko,_ she thought. _I want you to leave Akko. If this keeps up you’re just going to hurt her further._

_‘Deal. Won’t. Hero,’_ the spirit spoke in a calm manner, just stating facts. Constanze now rested her chin on her hands, closing her eyes.

_I know we had a deal. I’ll get you another subject. Akko was an accident, and you know it._

She never spoke unless absolutely necessary. The only time she’d actually used her voice in the past three years was when Akko flew for the first time, and it had come to her so instinctively that she had surprised herself. Luckily, everyone around her was so focused on Akko’s flight that they didn’t notice. This way of speaking she had reserved for special occasions or emergencies. What was going on earlier looked like an emergency. And yet, even with words, it had been useless. Words were overrated. Yes, talking sometimes helped, but more often than not, they just made everything worse, in Constanze’s opinion.

Now that she had formed the mental link it would take a few hours to fade, and she decided it was a good chance to talk to the spirit directly. Spirits had simple minds, but they weren’t stupid. They understood abstract concepts like promises and deals or the inherent coolness of a superhero fighting against bad guys. The vengeful spirit that now possessed Verochka seemed to be particularly sharp, with the way it had attacked last night with those marbles and how despite lacking speed it had bested Akko. Of course, it had also gone after the best student, physically speaking. It could even speak more than single words loosely strung together.

Akko’s spirit on the other hand had its single obsession. And she knew what the answer was going to be before it said it.

_‘No. Good. Heart,’_ the spirit answered. Constanze didn’t answer instantly. Even like this, she liked to consider what she was saying. More so when the one she was speaking to could have trouble understanding logic. The spirit liked Akko, that much was obvious. Despite everything, they were similar. They both had simple minds and good hearts. Only problem was, those good hearts were going to get them both killed.

_You’re going to get Akko killed,_ Constanze started to find it harder to keep her cool. She kept wondering why no one else was entering the room.

_‘No. Hero,’_ the spirit insisted. Of course, the spirit believed heroes couldn’t die. This was going to be a long discussion.

 

Amanda sat on Constanze’s bed. The little group waiting to see if Akko was ok was sitting around the room. To the redhead, this whole situation was getting out of hand. It was afternoon already, about two pm, and the sun outside was lighting the entire room without much effort.

“We need to catch this evil spirit before Akko wakes up and goes to get herself killed,” she said, looking particularly at Diana, who was the one who had seen the most the kind of damage Akko had suffered. Amanda had commented on how cool Akko’s power was, but to have those things go after her because of it wasn’t worth it at all. She still cringed whenever she remembered how the pillow had thrown her from the broom. If Akko hadn’t saved her… She shook her head, getting those thoughts out of it.

“I agree.” Diana nodded. “If we could only immobilize her for a second, it might be enough to aim our spells correctly. But how would we do it without the astounding abilities of Akko’s exoskeleton? Normal body-enhancer spells aren’t as effective as that.”

“If Akko isn’t around, I can try to sing, but it would take a while, and the spirit seems pretty smart. He might attack me or run.” Lotte explained timidly. Everyone remained in silence for a while. A bird carefully landed outside the window, but no one paid much attention to it.

“No, that’s too dangerous.” Diana shook her head.

“Doesn’t the exoskeleton have a weakness besides the way of disconnecting it?” Sucy asked. “A design flaw, you know.” Despite how she wanted to be perceived, she was obviously worried about Akko too. She didn’t joke as much, she didn’t smile creepily.

“Verochka’s prototype’s flaw is that it’s only focused in raw power. She can’t enhance her senses or run at high speeds, but she could probably resist even a bullet. Not that it matters, since the spirit has control of her natural reflexes and skills too, it can make up for the lost speed and reflexes,” Diana explained. Amanda knew that unlike her and Akko and herself she had studied the designs of the prototypes. “And it’s vulnerable to magic, too. Though probably only someone like Verochka could handle it, since it puts great strain on muscles, even beyond what Lin-Lin’s put on her.”

“Ok, but none of that helps us.” Amanda rolled her eyes. “We need something more concrete.”

“There isn’t something more concrete,” Diana explained. No-one spoke for a few seconds. “Constanze is just really good at building stuff, I guess,” the blonde concluded.

“Maybe we can poison her,” Sucy suggested. “Lure her out, make her breathe some knockout gas.”

“Wouldn’t work. The spirit is in control of Verochka’s body, even if she fell unconscious it could keep going,” Diana kept sounding more and more frustrated with each answer, as if the lack of choices was drawing her closer to snapping. The bird on the window flew away, the flutter of wings distracting Amanda.

“We could set a trap,” Amanda said. “Like the ones used to catch animals. The spirit might fall for something like that.”

Diana nodded, considering the possibility. “It’s not bad, but still too dangerous. What if it doesn’t fall for it and attacks? We don’t have exoskeletons, one of her punches could kill easily.”

Amanda sighed. “You could throw some ideas at us too, you know?” She said. Diana opened her mouth, but shut it, closing her eyes. The redhead hadn’t wanted to sound that harsh, but it was annoying to have all of their ideas thrown out after barely a few seconds of consideration.

Again, silence reigned for a while, only broken by the sound of Jasminka’s bag of snacks as she kept grabbing more. Amanda was at a loss. She trusted her physique, but she knew she was no match for Verochka in any way shape or form, particularly in hand to hand combat.

“Argh,” she complained. “If only we could make another exoskeleton!” the redhead hit the bed with her hand. Everyone nodded absently, but they knew Constanze had worked for months on the last one, they couldn’t get a new one quick enough.

Then, a knock came at the door. The girls met eyes, saying nothing. In the end, it was Jasminka who stood and walked to it, opening.

On the other side, Chariot stood with a serious expression. “Girls, I might have just what you need.”


	7. Plans.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The newly formed group of witches hatch a plan, meanwhile, Constanze fails miserably at keeping her mind in control

Croix’s lab on New Moon tower was clean, despite not being used in like a year. Chariot already knew the layout from exploring it thoroughly after Croix’s imprisonment.

She lead the group of five girls around it and found what she was looking for: Croix’s tablet. Or, more accurately, her next-gen wand. After chats with the former teacher, she had learned to use it to control the different magitech devices that were left laying around. Like, for example, the Fuel Spirit cubes that hadn’t been used when building the Noir Rod. There weren’t many, but maybe there were enough.

“Wow, aren’t those dangerous?” Amanda asked, stepping back as she saw the dozen of cubes lazily fly around at Chariot’s command. The teacher wasn’t much more comfortable with this either, but after sending Alcor to check on Akko and hearing their conversation, she decided that they needed the advantage these cubes would give.

“Yeah, which is why I’m going to control them,” Chariot said. She stepped further into the lab, towards the wall covered in monitors. She turned on a few of them, not sure of exactly which was it that she needed, until she found the one pointing at Akko’s room. Despite everything, she hadn’t gotten rid of Croix’s cameras. She pushed away the melancholy she felt while looking at those screens. Croix was in prison, and she was doing mostly fine, but it would be a while until she was allowed to leave.

“What is the use of these cubes, though?” Diana asked, examining them warily. “Besides being a failure at trying to imitate the Shiny Rod, of course,” there was a hint of mockery in her voice. Chariot smiled to herself. While Diana didn’t often show that she used to be her fan – in fact, unlike Akko, she had obviously gotten over her fanaticism – it was the little reactions that still showed how she used to be, particularly how protective she seemed to get over Chariot related stuff.

“Well, they can take on different shapes. But, maybe more importantly, they can take over technology.” Croix had learned the wrong way just how dangerous that was, but it might be exactly what they needed right now. Either that or it would make everything worse, but Chariot trusted that not to be the case.

“I don’t know. Those things seem like too much of a risk.” Sucy said coldly. “What if they take over the exoskeleton and just take it over and make it more powerful?”

Sucy had a point. Chariot knew the danger, but somehow, she trusted the technology. Or maybe she just wanted something good to come out of what Croix had built.

“I have a plan.” Chariot said, smiling gently. Maybe the girls would be convinced to trust her after she explained it.

 

It was futile.

Constanze grunted in frustration. She took out her wand and severed the mental link manually, not trusting herself to not punch Akko in the face if she kept talking to the spirit. Instead, she decided to stop speaking to the spirit. As always, words had done nothing for her.

Her eyes fell on Akko’s peaceful face. It had been a long chat, but she hadn’t reacted at all. She felt something build up in her chest while looking at her. Guilt, yes, bur more too. Appreciation, joy, even shyness. As some might put it, she felt butterflies in her stomach

She looked at Akko’s lips, feeling her cheeks heat up with her silly ideas. Yet, as silly as those were, her hand still crept slowly towards Akko’s. She brushed the brunette’s fingers, her heart rate accelerating. Carefully, holding her breath, she slowly lied her hand on top of the other girl’s. She was slowly coming to accept the obvious. Akko was clumsy, noisy and an idiot. But she was determined, fun and earnest. And, maybe, beautiful. She went further, fully grabbing Akko’s hand with her own. Akko’s fingers were harsh with calluses.

Constanze had never liked anyone before, so she had no point of reference, but she was pretty sure she liked Akko. Not that it mattered. Akko would only see her as a friend. She wasn’t particularly bothered by her body normally, but in this context… Who would fall for someone that looks like a little kid? Well, a lot of people, if the internet had anything to say about it. But speaking about normal people, like Akko, that probably didn’t hold true.

That, and Constanze had gotten her into this conundrum. They had no way of dealing with Verochka besides Akko, but Constanze didn’t want Akko to fight the Russian girl again. And, even if they dealt with her, there were still two missing exoskeletons. Who would be taken over next? Was there any way to prevent it? If things were like before, maybe they could have blocked the Philosopher’s Stone’s magic to force the exoskeletons to run out of it, but with the new world magic, that would never happen.

The tiny girl shook her head. It was not the first time that she was at a loss in regards of something, but it sure as hell felt like it was the first time it was something really important. If she couldn’t take the exoskeleton away from Akko, then they had to deal with the vengeful spirit. But if the spirit could beat them, then what was she supposed to do?

She felt a squeeze at her hand, and instantly reacted by pulling it away, feeling her heart stop for a second. She then looked at Akko, but the brunette was still asleep. It had been a simple reaction, not a conscious effort. She relaxed, but decided that taking the hand again was too risky. What if someone else entered the room? She wouldn’t really have an explanation, and in all honesty, she didn’t want to deal with what would happen if Amanda found out that she actually liked someone. Constanze wouldn’t be able to stand the teasing.

She looked at the hand again. She wasn’t going to do it. Akko was unconscious, for goodness’ sake; it was an invasion of her personal space and a creepy thing to do. And what would hold her hand even accomplish? Besides making her heart go into overload, of course.

Constanze decided that standing was safer, so she did. She started to pace, her mind working on the problem, as always. More and more, she found her interest in the exoskeleton dwindling. What was a few month’s worth of work to Akko’s life? She could end this with a single magic-nullifier spell. It was fun, actually, that this kind of magic had become available again after magic returned to the world. It took an incredible amount of magic energy to produce one of those spells. Bring back the magic to allow witches to nullify it.

She took out her wand. This could be over in a single blast. Just cast the spell, be done with it.

But the spirit was still out there. She gritted her teeth, putting the wand back in her belt. Akko wouldn’t want to be rid of her powers just yet. She’d let her make the decision. Maybe Constanze could convince the brunette to allow her to take it off and make some modifications. Problem being, those modifications could take a week, being generous.

She sat on Sucy’s bed. From this distance she shouldn’t get any funny ideas. Or at least she wouldn’t feel the need to actually do them.

And, right as she was considering this, the brunette’s head moved. Her eyes were open, staring at Constanze with a sloppy smile. “Hey. I’m pretty hungry.”

 

The forest was dark, even in the middle of the afternoon. It wasn’t hard to see, but it was just enough for everyone in the group to feel like they were being watched without them noticing it. They didn’t know exactly where Verochka would be, so they explored the general area of her disappearance and half-expected she would come out.

Without killing any of them hopefully.

Chariot was handling the dozen Fuel Spirit cubes, carefully looking around, a couple of Sorcery flying around her and checking the surrounding forest for the missing girl. The second they picked something unusual, the plan would be on.

They walked in two lines. Sucy and Amanda were at the front, followed by Lotte and Chariot and then Diana and Jasminka. They had decided on this setup to protect the two who would be the most important for the plan, Chariot being the one who would try to take possession of the exoskeleton remotely, and Lotte being the one who would force the spirit out of it while Chariot had the thing under her control. Being half technology, the Fuel Spirit cubes were immune to most spells, including the magic-nullifier one.

Of course, they had thought of telling Constanze about the plan. But they didn’t want to get in the red team’s, since the tiny girl seemed to be pretty affected by the state Akko was in. In the end, they had left a note outside the door that the girl would see when she was ready. They hadn’t explained the entire plan on it, but that would hardly matter if they succeeded.

“Diana, don’t you feel anything?” Chariot asked to the girl behind her, who’s wand was glowing with a tracking spell. The blonde shook her head. “The spirit’s essence has overridden Verochka’s, my tracking spell won’t work.”

“Well isn’t that convenient,” Amanda scoffed. “Come out, you coward!” She cried to the trees.

“Amanda, please control yourself,” Diana sighed. “We should try to keep a level head if we’re to-” She paused.

Chariot had heard it too. She looked around, readying the Fuel Spirit cubes and the Sorcery Units. There it was, again. A soft rustle, but an unnatural one, from the right. Turning, they didn’t see anything. However, one of the roombas started beeping. It pointed… Up. Chariot looked at the treetops, and cried out as a girl dropped on top of them.

Everyone jumped away, and one of the roombas exploded with a punch. The other one tried to defend itself, but Verochka didn’t even look back as she spun and backhanded it without effort. It fell to the ground, no longer functional.

Now or never, Chariot thought, manipulating the Fuel Spirit cubes. They quickly moved and surrounded Verochka, who tried to punch them, but they were too elusive. One by one, they started to stick to her. Soon, al twelve were gone and the exoskeleton surrounding Verochka was glowing yellow. Chariot had, of course, changed the source of power from anger to joy. Maybe they wouldn’t be as powerful, but that way they wouldn’t be so dangerous, should they go berserk.

She pressed the tablet, and Verochka was paralyzed.

“Lotte, now!” She cried. Lotte nodded from where she had fallen, standing and stepping away from Verochka as she started to sing. It was a beautiful song, one Chariot would have enjoyed more if the situation weren’t as it was. Verochka’s face remained unchanged, but something told the teacher that the spirit was fighting. Quite literally, in fact, as the tablet she was carrying had a warning onscreen. A warning on resistance.

And the Fuel Spirit cubes were losing. Maybe joy wasn’t the best choice for an emotion?

Verochka slowly started to move. She looked at Lotte, who kept singing despite the look of horror in her face. _Just another few seconds!_ Chariot thought, standing. She raised her wand and casted a spell.

Chariot saw in the screen of the tablet that the takeover had been mostly a failure. Mostly. However, she wasn’t as well versed as to know exactly what had happened, so she dropped the tablet. She jumped, trying to reach the Russian girl before she managed to get Lotte, who had decided to ran away while singing.

Mid-air, the red-haired teacher landed a kick on Verochka’s side, actually making her stumble. Still in the air, Chariot rolled and placed a kick on the girl’s face, trusting that the exoskeleton protected her. Otherwise, she would probably join Croix in jail.

Verochka took a step back and tripped. Chariot fell to the ground on a crouch, but stood up. _Lotte’s song isn’t taking effect,_ she thought. _The spirit must have an incredible willpower to be able to ignore it._

The plan had been a failure, even if now Chariot suspected what the effect of the Noir Fuel cubes had been. The way Verochka was affected by her kicks probably meant that the Exoskeleton’s magic was weaker. Her body enhancing magic was the strongest she had known, but it still didn’t compare to the compounded effects of the many spells Constanze had casted on the exoskeletons.

Maybe she could do it herself.

She cursed as Verochka used her hands to jump and stood up effortless. The Russian girl threw a punch, one that Chariot barely avoided. Even if weakened, a punch like that would probably break her bones. However, she took a hold of the arm, and used the girl’s own weight as she turned to throw her over her shoulder, to the ground again, careful not to hit any trees on the process.

She quickly tried to reach behind the neck, but placing her hands on the ground, Verochka spun as if break-dancing and forced Chariot to jump away. Was that some martial art? Lotte kept singing in the background, even if the spirit didn’t come out, the song would distract it.

Verochka looked towards the redhead, but then focused back on Chariot. The other girls had hidden behind trees, and were watching the fight with frustration.

The teacher and the possessed student took on fighting stances. Verochka had a kickboxing stance, Chariot had her own, created after years of performances.

This was going to be hard.


	8. Fight.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A long fight scene.  
> That's about it.

Akko stood, careful. She wasn’t feeling particularly bad, besides a horrible tiredness. She moved her arm, which didn’t feel broken anymore, but it was dark with a bruise. Her stomach was purple with a bruise too, and moving around was still painful, but not too much.

How long had Constanze been there? And why was she alone? She didn’t know, but she’d ask her later, once the girl returned with her food. She didn’t feel the mental link she felt with her sooner, which was kind of disappointing. Talking to Constanze wasn’t something one actually got to do in normal circumstances. Well, what was done was done, no use in worrying about it. Though, it had felt kind of… Intimate, hadn’t it?

She shook her head. Silly thoughts, Constanze had just been worried. Maybe she was finally opening up like Akko had always hoped, though the situation at hand was more likely the reason. Even so, she was happy that Constanze was there when she woke up. The honest and fiery way the girl worried was something that gave her determination.

Hungry, she looked at the door. She knew she shouldn’t be up and moving, but laying in bed was not… _What’s that?_ She thought, looking at the little piece of paper in the floor. Carefully, she picked it up. It was a note.

She dropped it, taking off at a run. She’d have to eat later.

 

Chariot side-stepped while turning, avoiding a tree on her way while dodging a low kick from Verochka, whose leg hit wood and was stopped mere inches away from Chariot’s calves. Chariot, still moving, jumped, using a low branch on the tree to swing herself around the trunk and kick Verochka’s chest, then using her as a spring to reach higher into the trees, swinging up and using a spell to hold herself steady atop a branch, the grain of the wood barely scraping her hand thanks to her spell.

The possessed student jumped, easily reaching Chariot’s height, despite the fact that the teacher was twelve feet up. With a kick, she broke off the branch Chariot was standing in, but the older woman was ready and jumped away before that could happen. Chariot felt somewhat excited as she landed on another tree-branch, this time a wider one. Her heart was pounding, her body was sweating, it had been a year since the last time she’d felt like this. She turned around to see Verochka kick the tree before falling, launching herself in Chariot’s approximate direction.

Chariot took advantage of her superior mobility – being able to cast spells, in the end, was an advantage – and stepped into the tree-trunk, standing fully horizontally and extending her arm to catch Verochka mid-air by the waist. Using the tree as an anchor, she could bend back all she wanted without worrying about hitting the floor, and while doing so she managed to get the Russian witch into an awkward sit-like position between three branches and a bunch of leaves.

She jumped, perching herself behind the girl with one hand, and reaching for the purple-glowing point with the other as Verochka struggled to get out of her position. However, with the reduced strength and Lotte’s interference, she seemed to have trouble moving.

Chariot took the purple point amidst the yellow and black, and pulled.

Nothing happened. No time to find out why, Verochka finally found footing and kicked, breaking one of the branches with a loud crack and falling to the floor. Chariot swung herself on top of the branch and looked down, seeing a bead of sweat fall from her nose. What had happened? That was the point she was supposed to pull out, but it was as if…

As if it was being protected. She knew for a fact the Fuel Spirit cubes weren’t doing that, if not, the spot would have glowed yellow too. No, it was something else. As if…

 _As if the spirit was keeping it in place._ It wasn’t stupid, it probably knew that was the weakness. After what happened with Lin-Lin…

Chariot didn’t have the strength to pull it out.

She dropped to the ground as Verochka jumped up. The girl looked down surprised – or, at least, Chariot believed she was, because it didn’t show in her face – as the older woman started to run. She needed to stall for time, to think of something. Maybe if the other girls stacked more body enhancement spells into her it would help… No, that didn’t work on humans. Actually, Chariot didn’t even know how Constanze had managed it with the exoskeletons, but she wasn’t in the right situation to ponder things. She looked back, where Verochka was persuing between trees. Chariot was faster, luckily, but it wouldn’t be of much help in the long run.

Neither in the short run, it seemed, because Verochka stopped for a second, took on a run starting position, and kicked the ground.

She shot forward, and Chariot didn’t even have time to fully react as the flying girl tackled her. They rolled in the ground until they were stopped by a tree that hit Verochka’s back. She was completely unfazed, clutching Chariot’s waist. Chariot could feel the pressure being applied. She grunted in pain and effort, trying to free herself, but she just wasn’t strong enough. At this rate, the Russian girl would snap her in half.

And then, a foot appeared next to Verochka’s face.

 

“Leave her alone!” Akko yelled, her kick sending Verochka flying. She took hold of Chariot to stop her from going with her as she fell to the ground, kicking up dead leaves. Her arm hurt, and her stomach sent her stabs of pain every time she moved, but she didn’t mind. She couldn’t mind.

“Akko?” Diana jumped from her hiding spot some forty feet away, her platinum blonde hair sticking out of the thicket like a lighthouse in the night. “You shouldn’t be moving! Hell, you shouldn’t even be awake! What in the name of the Nine Olde Witches are you doing? How did you even find us?”

Akko didn’t pay her much attention, but she made a mental note to later scold everyone for what they did. Verochka slowly rose. Her exoskeleton, for some reason, was glowing yellow. It kind of looked like those Fuel Spirit things Croix used to build, but why would it?

“Akko, be careful,” Chariot said. Her face was pearled with sweat, red with effort. “She’s weakened, you could harm her.”

The brunette nodded as Verochka stood. So the yellow glow had something to do with the weakness? It didn’t matter, not right now. Her opponent ran towards her, masterfully avoiding the roots sticking out of the ground. Chariot stood, taking position next to Akko. Akko wanted to tell her to go away, but before she could, Verochka jumped and threw a spinning kick at them both.

Both ducked, letting Verochka jump over them. Akko needed to finish this and fast, Lotte’s song was already causing interference with the exoskeleton and she could feel an abnormal amount of tension on her neck. A simple distraction tactic wouldn’t work, the spirit knew which of the two was more dangerous. However, if they teamed up, they might just have a chance.

Akko met Chariot’s eyes and nodded. They would do it, together.

Verochka didn’t gave them time to plan and jumped back, throwing another kick. Both student and teacher jumped back, and separated as Verochka spun and threw a wide punch at Akko, who stopped in her tracks, letting it pass before her, feeling the breeze it created. She was not going to be reckless this time. She took a step back as Verochka spun to bring her other fist on Akko, and again, Verochka missed.

Taking advantage of the girl’s own momentum, Akko crouched and kicked at her legs, almost slipping on the humid ground. Verochka tripped, and Chariot instantly fell on her, forcing her fully to the ground. Verochka used a single hand to avoid falling completely, pushing Chariot up towards the treetops. Akko gritted her teeth as her neck started to hurt, as if her head wanted to leave her body. She could feel the struggling spirit in her head, torn between following the irresistible song or keep helping Akko.

Verochka threw a punch at the brunette, who just moved her head enough to avoid it, raising a leg and kicking the Russian in the stomach. She was thrown against a tree-trunk. Akko’s vision was starting to get blurry with pain, though she didn’t know if it was hers or the spirit’s.

Again, Verochka seemed perfectly ready to attack.

Until Chariot fell back down, right on top of her, and made her fall to the ground again. This time, however, she had a hold of the girl’s arms, and she fell face-first into the dirt and leaves below, leaving the back of her head exposed. Akko didn’t think about it – mostly because she literally couldn’t – and reached down to pull the purple dot. After a few seconds of effort, it came off. Verochka stopped moving.

A second later, the song finally stopped, and Akko fell on her knees, panting and holding her head. _‘Fine. Sorry. Fine,’_ the spirit said, sounding tired. Akko didn’t mind, it had been her idea to come here in the first place. She finally started to relax. Then, a wisp of purple rose from the exoskeleton. The other spirit.

It tried to go away, just like last time, but a green light flashed, followed by the sound of a spell casted, and a ball of pale green magic hit the spirit. _‘No!’_ The spirit in Akko’s head cried, moving her body forward. The spell, however, had only created a small bubble around the spirit. It was now fully visible, as a blob of purple with tiny, hateful eyes. It tried to fight its way out of the bubble, but it was useless.

“Thank you, Diana.” Chariot stood, letting go of Verochka and carefully taking the exoskeleton out of her clothing. Then, she walked off into the forest, the rustling of leaves following her.

Everyone came out of their hiding places. “I need to get Chariot to teach me that spell.” Amanda said, looking at the spirit as she approached. Behind her, Sucy looked at Akko with a well hidden worry look. The brunette was too used to the antisocial girl and knew how to read her expressions.

Diana cleared her throat. “Akko, I beg you to go back to bed. It seems that I have underestimated the capabilities of your own body being amplified by the exoskeleton, but I can assure you, you’re not ready to be up.” She had a few leaves on her hair, her wand was in her hand and her knees and palms were dirty. She walked carefully and looking at the ground to avoid roots.

“I’m fine.” Akko shrugged, noticing Jasminka and Lotte in the distance. Lotte was walking meekly, throwing an ‘I’m sorry’ look at her, and Jasminka was, as always, eating some snacks.

“Well, it would be nice if you carried Verochka, though. She’s not precisely little.” Amanda looked at the unconscious Russian girl, who had a few leaves on her face. Akko nodded, grunting in pain as she bended down to pick her. Of course, it was as if she was carrying a pillow, in terms of how bothersome it was. A really big pillow, but a pillow nonetheless. A dakimakura, maybe. Though she doubted Verochka would be glad to be called a hug pillow.

Chariot finally came back, holding a tablet. The exoskeleton had gone back to normal, and near her, a dozen floating cubes, glowing yellow, floated. Akko raised an eyebrow, but decided this was not the best moment to ask.

What was the best moment for, however, was shouting.

“Hey, girls?” Akko asked, looking at her friends and teacher. They all turned to look at her. Akko took a deep breath. “WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!” She cried, and everyone shied away from her. “Do you have any idea what could have happened if you were hit by that spirit? It almost killed  _me,_ and _I’m_ the one wearing the damn exoskeleton! I would expect some stupid plan like that from me, or maybe Amanda,” the redhead frowned at this, but said nothing. “I might even be able to expect it from Sucy or Lotte, I’ve rubbed off the wrong way on them, but you two?” She looked at Diana and Chariot.

“Well, we believed-” Diana started, trying to get Akko to listen.

“And you didn’t even bring Constanze into it!” Akko continued, completely ignoring the blonde. “‘Gee, should we try to get the creator of the artifact to help us? Guess not, let’s go alone’,” she mocked. “What if I hadn’t arrived when I did? Chariot could be paraplegic!”

Everyone – except Jasminka – looked down. It felt weird, to be the one scolding. Even her teacher looked ashamed.

Akko sighed. “Thank you anyways.”

The others perked up, and Akko decided to start moving. Of course, she moved way faster than any of her friends, even when carrying the girl, so she just moved around the trees and roots without worrying about much, the feel of her hair whipping and her clothes flapping in the wind seeming to relax her after the moment of tension.

Now, the only thing left was to explain to Constanze what had happened.


	9. Worry.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Constanze didn't exactly like what happened, Akko tries to make up for it.

Constanze was mad.

She had decided not to communicate with Akko. Despite the fact that the brunette kept breaking into her workshop, every time she was kicked out by one trick or another. Constanze was now sitting down and working on her new idea: An exoskeleton remover. Beat fire with fire. Or, in this case, beat a machine with a machine. If magic and reason wouldn’t help her, then cold metal would. The workshop, now clean to the point that made Constanze felt weird, had been handled by Diana for a day, since from the first time she’d set a foot inside she had been kind of really, really upset by the infinite dust. That had been a bad idea, as Diana had reorganized all of her materials and tools. She said this way was more effective, Constanze thought it was more annoying. But, since last week, when she’d gone back to the room and found that Akko wasn’t there, only to see her come back with Verochka in hand surrounded by the others, she found _everything_ annoying.

Akko had ditched her. That hurt, of course, but she understood why she had done it. The real problem was that she had gone and run straight into danger without a plan, despite her state. While now she was healed and the evil spirit imprisoned, she was still not ready to forgive her. She didn’t know exactly why she felt so betrayed. Akko had just gone to save their friends, and by all accounts, she had arrived just in time. Constanze knew she was being unreasonable. She didn’t care. The thought of what could have happened to Akko clenched her chest, making it hard to breathe. Instead, she focused on her work. The designs for the machine weren’t particularly good yet, as she only had raw ideas and none of them connected too well. However, if she worked really, really hard, she was certain she could get things done in under a month. Not that Akko would mind, of course, she was happy with her magic powers.

As she wrote, not rising the view from the work desk, she started to think about school in general. She hadn’t done a single homework since the accident two weeks prior, no teacher had talked to her about Akko’s exoskeleton – they no longer tried to hide it, since at this point everyone and their grandmas knew about it – and nobody was actually paying much attention to her. Of course, that was an advantage. Not being bothered was a relief which let her focus on her work. On the other hand, it was kind of unsettling, as one would think _someone_ was going to be interested in this new and crazy technology that gave everyone superpowers. Or at least the teachers would be inclined to give her some kind of punishment for breaking the rules again.

No level of thinking was going to let her figure exactly why that was, so she decided to avoid the subject for now and ask Chariot later. She looked at the clock in the screen next to her, noticing how late it was. She was going to be late for Dinner, at this rate. But… She didn’t really feel like going. When in the school, she couldn’t force Akko out of the room like here, and with her speed she couldn’t just leave her behind. Plus, ignoring the loud girl was hard.

Yet, she needed food. With a sigh, she put the pen down. Not much progress in actual work today, but some of the ideas she had come up with would probably look a lot better or worse after a night of sleep.

However, before leaving, she got an idea and smiled. Maybe she could leave behind Akko after all.

 

Akko pouted. Constanze was giving her the cold shoulder, and she was extremely bothered by it. She still didn’t understand why she was being the only focus of her anger. Everyone had gone to fight Verochka, and it had ended up well, so why was she the only one?

When she talked to Lotte and Sucy about this, they had looked at her funny.

“You’re way too dense,” Sucy had said.

“I’m sure she’ll forgive you soon,” Lotte had said.

Neither of those was an answer to her question!  But it didn’t matter, because she was not going to let Constanze continue with this. She now stood in the landing of the stairs that led up to the fourth floor where her room and the green team’s room were. There wasn’t any other way out. Her stomach rumbled with hunger, but food was secondary for the moment. She distracted herself seeing the stars outside, the half moon in the sky illuminating the night. It was a cold night, but not annoyingly so.

She heard steps from behind, and turned to see Constanze walking downstairs, pointedly ignoring her. Akko stood in her way.

Constanze tried to step around her, but Akko was naturally faster. A couple of failed tries later, the tiny girl just sighed and turned to go upstairs again. Akko used her powers to stop her too.

“You going to talk to me now?” The brunette smiled. Constanze deadpanned her. “I don’t mean literally, just don’t ignore me, please?” She put on her best puppy face. The other girl deadpanned for another few seconds before sighing and rolling her eyes, pointing upwards.

Akko nodded and started to go upstairs, happy to-

Constanze instantly ran away. “Seriously?!” Akko cried, dumbfounded.  Once out of the shock, she ran downstairs. Why did Constanze even bother? She knew how much faster Akko was, there was no way to- Akko was in the air.

_Wait, what?_

As she flew, she noticed that one of the steps on the stairs was full of little beads of metal, the size of marbles. She had slipped on those. Constanze disappeared at the bottom of the stairs as Akko tried not to fall on her face, rolling when she fell. She looked around, but Constanze had already left the dorms wing. Looking out into the hallway, she noticed the tiny girl disappearing through the set of stairs that led down to the second floor.

Akko shook her head, what was going on? Constanze knew there was no way she could actually leave Akko behind. The brunette ran to the set of stairs, what could the other girl- She fell face first into the floor. Grunting, she stood, and noticed the tiny metal chord tied to the walls in the hallway, at ankle-height. When had she gotten time to do that? She narrowed her eyes. “You wanna play like this, Constanze?!” She cried. “You’re on!” She stood and ran to the stairs. All of the steps, including the landing, were filled with metal beads. Akko instead slid down the railing, the exoskeleton enhancing her balance and making it extremely easy.

Once down in the second floor, Constanze was no longer in sight. Akko wanted to catch her before she reached the cafeteria, but there were three entrances there – two on the inside, one on the outside – and she couldn’t guard all three at the same time. The German girl could have hidden herself in one of the classrooms, or had gone downstairs again, or just ran through the other side of the horseshoe-shaped hallway that was the main hallway of school. There was no way to tell, she didn’t-

No, wait. She _did_ have super senses.

She closed her eyes, focusing all she could only on her hearing. No steps nearby, so Constanze was no longer running. She had hidden herself somewhere or maybe she had gone downstairs? She wished she could amplify her senses even more, but the magic of the exoskeleton was physical, not sensorial. And then, something changed. She felt more tired, weaker. But her ears now boomed with the sound of conversations, her nose smelled dirt, sweat, food, cleaning chemicals and shampoo, she opened her eyes and had to close them again because of the brightness of the lights. The air seemed to get colder, she could even taste the food she had eaten during lunch, since she hadn’t brushed her teeth yet.

And, amidst the chaos of all of these sensations, she heard a door slowly creaking open. A sound that wouldn’t normally be heard, but this time… She covered her eyes and opened them again, trying to go back to her normal state. The energy returned to her body, and the light dimmed to her perception. _‘Magic. Channel. Focus,’_ the spirit said. Akko didn’t make much sense of it, but that was the problem with trying to understand someone who could barely speak three words without really connecting them.

What she did understand was that Constanze had hidden in one of the classrooms in the east side of the hallway.

She went slowly that way. If her ear was right, then it had to be the first one. She wasn’t particularly sneaky, unless it came to stealing food at night, but this time she put on her absolute best stealth game, not making a single noise. No one was around, luckily, so she didn’t have to worry about annoyed looks or unexpected people trying to speak to her and give her away.

She reached the door of the classroom and put her ear to it. No noise inside, but she was certain this was the place, so she sat. Constanze would try to check outside, and when she did, she was going to catch her. She smiled, feeling particularly smart with her move. Yes, this time Constanze would listen to her. What was she going to say? Well, she wasn’t sure, but whatever it was Constanze would have to hear it!

So she sat, and waited. And waited. Her stomach started to growl, as if it was an angry animal. Akko punched it to shut it up. Stupid stomach, it was going to give her away!

And then, she heard something from inside the room. Wood breaking. A desk crashing, but why?

Her instant reaction was to think it was another girl possessed by an exoskeleton. But of course, that wasn’t possible. The spirit was safely stored away somewhere inside New Moon Tower, where it wouldn’t harm anyone ever again. Akko tried not to think of the worse, but…

She entered the classroom, worried. It was dark, but with her slightly enhanced senses she could see pretty well. She didn’t see Constanze or the thing that had broken. Cocking her head, she kept looking around. Akko didn’t consider herself to be the smartest, but she believed that if she had heard something break, then something should have broken, right?

The sound repeated. Exactly the same sound. _Oh no._

She looked for the source and, indeed, there was a recorder taped onto the door. Where the hell did Constanze get the time to do all of this plan-

Wait!

Akko dropped the recorder and ran to the cafeteria, entering through the second floor balcony. She looked down on the sea of students. Among them, she picked Amanda and Jasminka, who were sitting next to Lotte and Sucy. Then she picked Diana, sitting with Hannah and Barbara.

And, right as she feared, Constanze was here too. In the far corner, the girl sat alone, as if hiding. Well, not ‘as if’. She was, probably, trying to hide from Akko. Akko clenched fists, not realizing she was grabbing the railing, denting it. Pressing her lips she carefully went downstairs and picked a tray of food. The noises of the cafeteria were now as loud as she had heard them earlier when she had done that thing with her senses. If she were to do that here, she would probably be overwhelmed.

She sat in the same table as her teammates, feeling completely defeated. Constanze had totally tricked her. But, then, why put the crashing sound? And then a second one so that she could realize where the recorder was? The only reason Akko could think of was that she didn’t want Akko to miss dinner.

As she thought of this, she actually believed it was true. She couldn’t help smiling a little. So Constanze wasn’t really _that_ mad.

“Akko?” Amanda poked her cheek, and she suddenly snapped back to reality. “Earth to Akko, you feeling well?” The redhead was looking at her with a frown.

“Yah, why?” Akko said, still slightly disoriented.

“Well, you arrived super late, for starters. You never arrive late at dinner.”

“And you were way too silent,” Sucy added. “You’re not dying, are you?”

“Sucy, please,” Lotte rolled her eyes. “Did you get to speak to Constanze?” The meek girl asked, showing a kind smile and putting a hand on Akko’s arm. Akko looked away, trying not to let disappointment show in her face. She failed. “Oh, well, I’m sure she’ll listen to you soon enough.”

“I don’t know,” Amanda had already finished eating. “She _did_ look pretty mad all week. When Cons gets like that, she takes a good while to get back to normal,” she explained, shrugging. Jasminka nodded in confirmation, which only helped Akko’s heart drop further down. So Constanze was as mad as she seemed, then?

 _No, don’t get discouraged. You’ll get to talk to her even if you die!_ Akko thought, though she didn’t feel as confident as she wanted to make herself believe.

 

In the darkness of the currently unused lab of New Moon Tower, there was a trash can. Inside that trash can, which was not actually used for trash – or, well that depended on who you asked – lay the currently unused Fuel Spirit cubes that had been of help in defeating the exoskeleton possessing Verochka. Across the week, those cubes had moved, though no one was controlling them. Or at least, no one human. Now, they moved again, if just a little bit more than the other times.

The absolute darkness stopped existing, now pierced by light.

Purple light.


	10. Blytonbury.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amanda helps Akko with her... Quandary.

Chariot sat against a tree trunk, not fully sure of what she should do. She had been looking for the missing exoskeletons all week, but she hadn’t found where they might be. Not that the forest was the only place she had looked for. New Moon Tower, all possible hiding spots at school, the botanical garden, between others. None of them had given any results, and magic tracking spells had been particularly ineffective since the return of magic to the world, since now a lot of things had high amounts of magical energy. In short, she was clueless.

But it shouldn’t really matter. As long as the spirit was kept away, those exoskeletons couldn’t hurt anyone. She was trying to find them just for duty’s sake. Nobody would want a student to find them and go crazy with the power only to end up hurting herself. Luckily, Lin-Lin and Verochka had gotten out of things rather unharmed, though Verochka had actually hurt her feet pretty badly. Chariot suspected it was her own fault, since it was during her fight that Verochka had gone around kicking trees in a weakened state. Still, neither of the girls really remembered what had happened, which was probably for the best.

Chariot stood again. It was early in the morning, and she had been out all night. Luckily, today was Saturday, so she could just sleep all day if she so wanted to.

The idea of going to her bed was probably the only thing that kept her moving.

 

Constanze cautiously looked out the door. No Akko’s in sight, good. Luckily, the brunette would be sleeping still.

She moved through the hallway towards the bathroom. She really needed to pee. Not that she actually believed Akko would ambush her in the toilet, but this being Akko, one could never be absolutely certain about anything. She reached the sacred place and sat down in one of the cubicles, sighing as she allowed her body fluids to escape her body. After finishing, cleaning herself and flushing, she washed her hands and repeated the process of carefully moving around to avoid being detected

She reached her room without troubles and smiled with satisfaction. The silence was almost absolute, except for the rhythmic breathings of Amanda and Jasminka. Dim dawn light entering through the window allowed her to see, and as she walked to lie on bed again, something gave her pause.

Instead, she simply sat. She had slept well, so she wasn’t really tired. However, she did like to sleep until later on Saturdays. That didn’t explain what she was feeling however. She felt uneasy. Something nagged at her mind, but she wasn’t sure of what or why. Despite just waking up, she felt strangely energetic and clear-minded. This was not the first time that this had happened, but she had trouble remembering what had caused it previous times.

It was as if her brain was restless, trying to tell her something. Trying to give her…

An idea!

She perked up. Of course, she had been thinking so long about so many things, that the simplest of solutions had slipped her mind.

If she couldn’t make the spirit agree to leave Akko alone, then what if it didn’t like Akko anymore? Spirits, as humans, have preferences. If somehow Akko stopped being of the spirit’s liking, then it would willingly leave her, avoiding any possible harm! She just had to create a device that somehow made Akko disgusting to the spirit. Constanze had all the data on the spirit, taken after they’d made the deal so that she could tune the exoskeleton to its use. If she could use that, then Akko would be free!

She needed to tell her, it was the best- Oh. She needed to tell her.

Well, she’d tell her when she finished. It would take at least a couple weeks, so there was no rush.

 

Amanda woke up to the sound of Constanze coming out of her bed. And not in the waking up way, but in the returning-from-her-workshop way. Looking outside, it was probably mid-morning, but not noon yet. She yawned as she watched the tiny girl throw things away from the closet, looking for something. After some digging, she found whatever she was looking for. Was that a key? Amanda was too tired to think straight, and didn’t ask before her teammate pressed her bed switch and disappeared again.

After a few minutes, unable to fall back asleep, Amanda yawned again and finally got up. She dropped from her bed to the floor and, with a tired stride, she went to the door. When she opened it, she wasn’t really surprised to see the Japanese brunette at the other side, smiling awkwardly. Without saying anything, she pointed to the bed. Akko pressed her lips, but with a determined look she entered the room, sat in Constanze’s bed and pressed the switch.

Shrugging, the redhead went back to her morning ritual. She went to the bathroom, where she greeted a few other students, washed her face, brushed her teeth and then went back to her room to change. At that moment, Akko shot out of the bed and face-planted into the ceiling, falling down with a grunt. “She’s not going to change her mind just because you keep harassing her, you know,” Amanda said as she put on her clothes.

“I know, I know…” The brunette eyed Amanda with a stranged look. Cocking her head, she looked as Amanda finished changing. “You’ll get in trouble if you wear that on school grounds,” she pointed out.

“Good thing I’m not wearing it inside school grounds for long. I’m going to Blytonbury,” the redhead explained. She looked at her attire. A white shirt with a black cat drawn into it, jeans and white sneakers. She was dressed for comfort, but she knew she probably looked hot as hell anyways.

“Oh, right. You were going to the movies today, right?” Of course, she had told the others about her plans. There was an action movie she wanted to see, and being away from school for a day would be a nice breather.

“Yep. Though I’m worried Constanze will forget, she’s apparently been working all morning.” The German witch tended to get too focused and forget about other things. What was she doing now, anyways? She looked pretty energetic.

“I’d tell her, if she would listen to me…” Akko looked down. Amanda rolled her eyes, she wasn’t a fan of drama. She had been tempted to explain to Akko what she had done wrong a number of times, but she also believed Constanze was exaggerating with her reaction. However, they needed to understand these things on their own or their relationship wouldn’t progress. Not that they were in a relationship, but Constanze wasn’t particularly subtle about her feelings, and Akko… Well, it was hard to tell. She was Akko after all.

“Don’t sweat it,” Amanda looked at Jasminka, who still slept like a bear. She was also supposed to join them, but Amanda was starting to think she was going to end up alone at the movies. “What are you doing today?” She asked to the brunette.

“I’m going to follow Constanze until she talks to me,” Akko said, determination in her eyes. Amanda smiled, looking out the window. She still had some time.

“Well, why don’t you try to ambush her when she really doesn’t expect it?” The redhead looked Akko in the eyes, seeing that she didn’t get what she was trying to say. “I mean, Constanze won’t expect you to go after her once in Blytonbury. If you get her there…”

“Oh, I see what you mean!” Akko looked to the side, smiling mischievously. Amanda kept smiling, understanding that what she had just done would probably get her the cold shoulder from Constanze too, should the plan fail. Well, they had to talk eventually anyways.

 

The purple light coming from the trash can wasn’t seen by anyone. Nor was it heard the constant shaking of it. The cubes, controlled by an unknown source, now were able to move almost constantly. They jumped, unable to fly, but trying to get out of their plastic imprisonment. It was, for now, a futile effort, as they could barely raise a centimeter from their position.

They kept trying anyways.

 

Constanze sat in her broom, ready to go. She wore her uniform – she didn’t care for her looks. Amanda and Jasminka, however, wore more casual clothing. It was barely past noon already, and she had almost forgetting about their plans today. Luckily, she had gotten hungry, and when she came out of the workshop to eat something, she had found Amanda and Jasminka deciding if they should leave her behind or not. Not that it really mattered, staying and working wouldn’t have bothered her. However, going to town and being away from Akko for a day had been too tempting to turn her back to it.

So, when they took off, she was weirded out by the feeling of guilt. Well, the added feeling of guilt, on top of the one she felt constantly nowadays. Was she felling like that because of what she was doing to Akko? Why? She was still working on her problem, and the brunette was the one at fault. There was no reason for _her_ to be feeling bad.

She didn’t have much time to her musings, however, because they soon arrived at Blytonbury. The large city reflected the sun with its red-tiled roofs, colorful buildings and people walking in the streets. The noise of cars and conversations reached her ears as they landed, and the busy streets made her uncomfortable.

Still, since witches had lost their limitation on how much they could fly when away from a Philosopher’s Stone, laws and regulations had been made on flying. Witches couldn’t fly over populated areas during day, so they had to land as soon as they arrived and walk to the movies.

They did. It wasn’t particularly hard, but it sure was annoying. Once there, they simply bought the entrances and moved inside to sit. Of course, Jasminka chose to buy as much food as she could. They didn’t chat as they waited for the movie to start. Well, Constanze never chatted, but Amanda was particularly silent today. Constanze dismissed the attitude as the redhead being tired or just expectant.

Others started to enter, despite the fact that the movie would still take about fifteen minutes to start. Well, it was a highly anticipated movie, so it made sense that people got impatient and wished to sit before it started. Constanze’s mind took the relative quietness of the cinema to go back to what she had felt earlier. Her rationalizations weren’t making the cut. She knew she was probably being too harsh on Akko, but her pride was too high to accept it. She wanted the brunette to understand her. She didn’t want to have to explain it, not with words. Words were useless. If Akko couldn’t understand it on her own, then what was the point? She needed to start taking better care of herself.

Because Constanze liked her more than anything right now. She wondered if it might just be infatuation, but she doubted it. The way she liked Akko wasn’t as strong as she believed it should. Yeah, a lot of her daily thoughts were focused on the brunette, but that was mostly because of everything going on. She didn’t feel so passionate that her mind didn’t work, or the usual chest-pain so many others described. Well, in part, she had felt that pain a couple times, but it wasn’t a constant. Maybe more importantly, she just wasn’t interested in a relationship at the moment. Should she be infatuated, a relationship should be on her top priorities, right?

As her mind went over all of this, the lights went out and the movie started. Being a sequel, the start didn’t bother presenting characters and went straight into the action. Constanze wasn’t particularly invested, so her thoughts slowly went back to her previous musings. In the end, even if she liked Akko, she didn’t like her so much to just forgive everything she did just because she was her. Or, maybe, she liked her so much that she couldn’t forgive her for doing what she did? She slowly shook her head. Love, and feelings in general, were annoying.

About ten minutes into the movie, Constanze felt something grab her left hand. But both Amanda and Jasminka were to her right. Had someone mistaken her hand for popcorn? If so, why didn’t they let go?

The tiny girl turned and found a couple of big red eyes staring at her. Akko had grabbed her hand, and Constanze realized, she had let her guard down.

She needed to think of a way of escaping.

 

The trash can toppled. From the perspective of an outsider, it would have probably toppled on its own, but the culprit were the cubes. After moving for so long, they had managed to escape. Now, even if slowly, they moved towards the door of the dark lab. They crawled, jumped and rolled – could squares roll? – with only their goal in sight.

However, they reached their second big obstacle. Without flying, they couldn’t reach the door’s opening mechanism.

That didn’t stop them from trying.


	11. Kiss.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I mean the title says it, does it really matter if I put anything here?

Chariot woke up after noon. Her room was well lit, showing her a mess that she dreaded have to clean up. She wasn’t particularly messy, in normal situations, but the last week had been nerve wrecking and she hadn’t had much time to do much besides her teaching duties and searching for the exoskeletons. She remained in bed, not wanting to move, feeling lazy and mentally tired. She wanted to sleep all day.

But she knew she couldn’t. With a sigh, she stood up, putting on her tracking suit. If she was going to be moving, better not to do it with her teacher uniform.

After going over her morning ritual, she went down to the cafeteria. A lot of students were lunching, but she just asked the kitchen fairies for a coffee and a piece of bread. Luckily, since school had picked up thanks to all of the newfound magic in the world, food no longer had to be just potatoes and they could allow themselves some nicer food, most of the time. Still nothing fancy, but some meat here, vegetables there and pastas from time to time always helped improve the morale of the students.

As she ate, some girls came to say hi. Others asked her questions about astrology and foreseeing, while most just passed next to her nodding respectfully. After so many years, she had grown used to normalcy, but she still remembered the days where she couldn’t go anywhere without a disguise out of fear of being recognized. Croix sometimes said that she still missed those days, but Chariot didn’t. She was far more experienced now that she had been back then, and that was fine. Plus, she wouldn’t be able to manage being the center of attention to so many people again. It had been hard enough when she had first revealed her true identity to others.

When she finished eating, the cafeteria was already emptying. She yawned again – she would feel tired all day, she knew it – and stood up. She’d have to finish going over the week’s program for her different classes and then in the late afternoon go outside for searching again. She also had to call the Spirits Containment Unit once again, but there were a lot of berserk spirits out there nowadays. And, of course, her daily workout. So much to do, so little time, she’d probably have to pull another all-nighter…

She exited the cafeteria through the second floor balcony, and started to climb stairs. There should have been an elevator installed, those stairs were a pain in the ass.

 

Akko was not going to let go. Constanze constantly tried to pull free, but Akko didn’t even feel her efforts. She was making sure not to hurt her, of course, but other than that, she didn’t even bother to think twice about holding onto the tiny girl’s hand. Despite this, Constanze still refused to make eye contact.

Well, maybe she did think twice. As they exited the theater, some people looked at them. They weren’t similar enough to be family, and Constanze’s constant fighting to get free drew some attention. Akko was worried someone would call the police or something, but her stubbornness surpassed her common sense, so she kept a tight grip on the hand.

“See? I told you,” Amanda winked at Akko. “You owe me one.”

Constanze stopped fighting to stare daggers at Amanda. The redhead chuckled, self-satisfied smile showing on her face. Both girls looked at each other for a while, as if having a silent conversation. In the end, the first one to break eye contact was Constanze, who just looked down, embarrassed. Whatever they were discussing about, Amanda had obviously won.

It didn’t stop Constanze from trying to get away.

They walked around aimlessly for a while. Akko entertained herself by looking at the many people walking around in casual attires, going through their day with their own set of worries. Most of them wouldn’t be really used to magic, and she couldn’t really imagine that. She had lived without magic for years, but thinking of going back to that was dreadful. Kind of like living without internet connection, though she had been forced to get used to that on Luna Nova since she didn’t have a crystal ball.

At one point, Constanze stopped struggling. Maybe she had gotten tired, or just accepted her fate. Still, when Akko looked at her, she found the tiny girl looking determinedly to the ground.

“Ok, now what?” Amanda asked. “I don’t feel like going back to school yet, but I don’t have any other ideas.”

Constanze looked up, pointing towards the leyline station in the edge of town. She wanted to go home.

“You’re not going anywhere until I say so,” Akko let her know. Constanze sighed. Then, she started to move her legs in an awkward way. Akko took a few seconds to realize, the girl wanted to go to the bathroom. “Oh, so that’s why you wanted to go?” Akko closed her eyes to think. This could be a trap, but it was true that Constanze hadn’t gone to the bathroom in the entire movie.

Then, the girl finally looked up and met her eyes. Akko’s heart jumped at the pleading look. Her stubbornness was forgotten for a second. “I guess we’ll go back to school.” Akko said, looking at Amanda. The redhead rolled her eyes, as if not agreeing with her decision, but she didn’t understand what was so wrong. Constanze had to go to the bathroom, right? Everyone had to go to the bathroom. Probably.

Constanze started to pull from Akko, but this time it was to hurry her up, not to try and escape. “Well, we’ll see you later.” Akko said, letting herself get dragged away by Constanze. As she passed next to Amanda, the redhead whispered something that she would have probably missed if not for her slightly enhanced senses. ‘It’s a trick.’

A trick? She was only going to the bathroom, how could that be a trick? Amanda was exaggerating, Akko believed.

 

_Oh,_ she realized. To allow Constanze to go to the bathroom, she had to let go of her hand. Standing in front of one of the cubicles, Akko considered all of the possibilities. Constanze hadn’t been prepared, so there was no way she could have prepared to escape from this. It should be ok to let her go.

Hesitantly, she released her grip, and Constanze entered the cubicle. Akko heard with a blush as she went, and then waited patiently until the sound of the flush.

She waited. And waited. And how much time could she take in the bathroom? Geez. She knocked on the door. “Constanze, you ok in there?” She asked, starting to lose her patience. No response. She rolled her eyes and looked under the door. No feet in sight. Frowning and confused, she jumped to look over the door.

Constanze wasn’t there. “What?!” Akko cried in utter shock. What the hell had just happened? She was just there! Maybe she had taken so long that she had fallen asleep without realizing it? No, no, she didn’t feel tired at all. Then where the hell could the tiny girl be?

Wait, tiny…

Akko looked in the next cubicle. There, she found Constanze, sitting in the toilet with the lid down and her feet up. “Good try,” Akko startled her, and she snorted. Akko dropped to the floor again, and opened the door to the cubicle. She slipped in, and closed it again.

She and Constanze were very, very close. “Ok, just so that you know, we’re not leaving this cubicle until you accept to listen to me.” Akko crossed her arms. Constanze eyed her and scoffed, shaking her head. Akko puffed her cheeks, frustrated. “Come on, we’re friends, right? Just… Hey!” Constanze kicked her. Though Akko didn’t feel it, it was still kind of annoying. “I don’t get why you’re so angry! I only went away to try and save our friends! I’m sorry for ditching you, but what would have happened if they got hurt? They couldn’t fight Verochka alone!” Akko snapped. Constanze was being so unreasonable, if she wasn’t willing to listen to her then she’d just yell it on her face.

Which had an unexpected result. The black-haired girl’s lip trembled, and she hid behind her hands. Akko watched the reaction confused. What was she trying to…?

Then she sobbed.

“Wait, why are you crying?” Akko put her hands in front of her, as if to protect herself from something. What the hell? “Constanze? Is something wrong?” The brunette knelt in front of the toilet, trying to get a better look at her friend, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion and worry. “I’m sorry I yelled, did I scare you?” After all, she _was_ wearing an exoskeleton that made her strong enough to kill in a single hit. “You didn’t think I was going to hit you or something, right? I would never…”

Constanze shook her head. Her crying was silent, except for the sobbing. Even in weakness, she didn’t let her voice out. “Look, I- I don’t know why you’re so angry, but if you don’t tell me I can’t apologize.” The brunette placed her hands in Constanze’s shoulders, trying to sooth her. The girl started taking steadying breaths, calming herself. She soon stopped crying, her emotional outburst passing through. Akko patted the shoulders. “There, there.”

The girl finally came out from behind her hands. Her eyes were still glassy with tears. _‘Constanze. Cute,’_ the spirit said inside Akko’s head. Akko agreed.

Constanze met her eyes and, for a few seconds, Akko felt the world fade away. Constanze really was cute. Or, maybe…

Her train of thought got interrupted as the other girl slowly raised a hand and placed it on Akko’s cheek. Constanze’s thumb caressed Akko’s cheekbone, and her eyes got dreamy. For some reason, Akko leaned her head a little, letting it rest on Constanze’s hand. It felt strange, the contact was something she didn’t know she wanted but now that she had it, it was natural.

Then, Constanze raised Akko’s shirt. For a second, the brunette’s heart stopped. What was Constanze doing…?

But she just stared at her stomach, where only the tiniest hint of the big purple bruise remained. She kept staring, making Akko wonder if she might be wanting to communicate something through the stare. “It’s fine now, if that’s what you’re wondering. It doesn’t hurt anymore,” Akko tried to explain.

But Constanze kept staring. Then, after a few seconds of Akko missing the point, she punched. Akko barely felt it, but then again, she felt Constanze was trying to make a point. Right after punching, she placed her hand over the spot she had punched, as if healing it. She punched again, and again she placed her hand on it. However, the third time, she punched two times.

And then, it clicked.

“Oh,” she said. Constanze met her eyes again. She finally understood what the problem had been. “You were angry that I went and almost hurt myself again before healing?”

Constanze nodded.

“So… You were just worried, right? You should have said so, instead of being angry!” Akko cried. Constanze gave her a cold stare. “Ok, ok, sorry,” she said, finally understanding what she should apologize for. “I promise I’ll take better care of myself from now on, if that helps.”

Constanze raised her eyebrows and pressed her lips. Yeah, that promise wasn’t particularly helpful when Akko was the one making it. “Still, I’m glad we finally settled this. I don’t like fighting with friends, most of the time. I wanted to talk with you, you know?” Akko stared intensely into Constanze’s teal green eyes. They agreed silently, and Akko felt herself slowly grow comfortable in her place.

The tiny girl’s hand was still on her cheek, and the warmth was calming. So calming, in fact, that Akko barely realized that Constanze’s face was getting closer.

When she did, it was a second too late, for Constanze stole a quick kiss from her lips.

Akko jumped back with such strength that the door of the cubicle broke, snapped out of its hinges and crashed onto the opposite wall. “C-C-Constanze?” Akko stuttered, confused. The German girl appeared as confused as she, as if the act hadn’t been performed by her.

Constanze was the first one to snap out of the surprise, an ‘I fucked up’ expression showing in her face before she stood and ran out of the bathroom. The brunette could barely think, touching her lips with a couple fingers.

Why would Constanze kiss her?

 

The cubes could finally float. They maintained themselves sin the air for about three seconds, and couldn’t reach far, but if they stacked on top of one another – as their new master had learned to do – they could actually go higher.

High enough, indeed, to take possession of the door’s mechanism and force it open.

A few seconds later, twelve purple-glowing cubes started to fall downstairs in New Moon tower, leaving behind the lab and making their way towards their imprisoned master.

Soon, it would be time.


	12. Drama.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a kiss, there's always drama!  
> Or, maybe not...?

Well, not everything was lost.

If only Constanze could believe that, she wouldn’t have been trying to decide if she should bang her head against a wall or just straight up pierce it with a screwdriver. Of course, the screwdriver would be more effective, but the head-banging would really allow her to _feel_ it.

She dropped to her knees on the now clean floor of the workshop, hands scratching her head on frustration. Why the hell had she done it? What had gotten over her? She grunted in frustration, ignoring a couple of stanbots that approached and patted her back, trying to console her. It didn’t help in the slightest.

She didn’t think Akko would hate her. She worried that Akko now knew how she felt… Or worse, that she was so stupid that she didn’t realize and went to speak about it with others. That stupid Japanese girl, why had she fallen for her? Why did everything have to be so complicated? And that reaction, Akko obviously didn’t like her back! On the bright side, Constanze didn’t think Akko could like anyone, at all, but that wasn’t much of a consolation.

The feeling of those soft lips still lingered on hers. She had kissed for the first time, and she feared she had also stolen Akko’s first kiss.

Why didn’t she think before acting? She _always_ thought before acting! But Akko had looked so beautiful, she had just gone and done it, and now everything was over. Well, not everything, but her relationship with Akko would be awkward as hell from now on.

She sighed. Well, she had fucked up. She knew she would look upon that moment for years to come, cringing and wanting the earth to swallow her every time she recalled it. But life continued, and she still had to get Akko out of that suit. She made her way to her work desk and started to work on her new device.

Maybe Sucy knew how to make a memory wiping potion…

 

Diana’s study session was over, so she stood up from her desk and walked over to rest on her bed for a while. During Saturdays, she only studied for four hours after noon. Of course, many students believed four hours was already a lot. Diana understood that she was the abnormal one, but her abnormal habits were also what put her in the position she was in.

The position that allowed her to research even books banned for normal students.

In front of her lay the only remaining copy of an ancient medicine tome. It was written solely in moon-runes. While some witches used moon-runes nowadays, they mostly wrote in English. Meanwhile, this tome was actually written in Latin. Within it Diana had found a couple of really old, forgotten spells. Spells that hadn’t been available for so long that, despite their usefulness, had vanished from popular knowledge.

She had been studying about magic connections in the body, with the idea of helping Akko out. She wasn’t in a hurry, Akko seemed ok with her situation, but Diana did believe that it could be dangerous to let it go on for much longer. And, of course, getting Akko out of that exoskeleton would probably help the morale of the short Constanze. Others didn’t notice, but Diana knew about internal struggles enough to understand what the German girl was going through, and she wanted to aid a friend in need.

_Friend._ Even after years of knowing Hannah and Barbara, the word ‘friend’ still appeared to have a golden chain around it, and it was hard to untangle and use it.

She went to her desk and sat down again.

Maybe some more studying wouldn’t hurt.

 

Akko lay in her bed. Her face was red. It had been for at least a couple hours now. Since Constanze had kissed her. She kept touching her lips, as if that helped her somehow. As if it helped her remember the quick touch of the soft and warm lips of the tiny girl. _‘Constanze. Cute,’_ the spirit repeated, and Akko started to believe it was just reacting to her own thoughts and feelings.

Constanze liked her. There was no other explanation as to why she would do that, but what could Akko do? She didn’t even know how she felt about the other girl. Yet, when she remembered the kiss, her heart started to beat fast, and it was harder to breath. Was this love? She couldn’t know, she didn’t have any experience.

“So, you kissed, right?” Sucy asked out of the blue. She had been making some potions, and Akko thought she wasn’t really paying attention to her. The question caught her off guard, so she jumped slightly. “What? Don’t act so surprised, you’re as red as a tomato and you’ve been touching your lips with a dumb smile for the past hour.” The purple hair girl gave her an annoyed look.

Still, Akko didn’t answer, realizing something. She was… Smiling?

Yeah, she was _smiling._

“You think… You think it’s ok?” Akko asked, sitting straight in bed. Sucy raised an eyebrow, unsure of what the brunette meant. “For me and Constanze…”

“Why do you ask? Because you’re both girls? Because if you’re going to have doubts over that…” Sucy stared in her usual mockery tone.

“No, no! I don’t care about that, it’s just… I dunno.” Akko didn’t even know what she meant. Was it really ok, for her to like Constanze? Maybe she was just tricking herself because she had never liked someone before, but… It felt strangely right. The girl wasn’t only cute, she was also smart, kind, cool… “I’ve never felt this way before.”

“Well, you’ve already kissed, right?” Sucy shrugged. “What’s the problem?”

“It’s, well, she kind of, well, stole the kiss and ran away…” She explained to Sucy. Sucy raised an eyebrow and smirked. Akko didn’t like that smirk, it meant that Sucy was enjoying the situation, and that probably meant that things were bad for Akko.

“If you want my advice, you should go right now and just tell her. It doesn’t have to be a soap opera.”

Akko perked up. Had Sucy just given her… Honest advice? She was usually blunt and mocking, and when she gave advice she was curt and mean. But this felt strangely… Real. Not fully knowing why, Akko found herself nodding and trusting her teammate’s advice. Sucy could be like this too, apparently.

They sat in silence for a while.

“So, you going to go or what?” The poison expert finally said, looking at her with a poker face. Akko smiled nervously, fidgeting with her fingers, trying to sort out her feelings.

“But… What would I even tell her?” The brunette tried not to sound too dumb.

“That’s not for me to decide.” Sucy kicked her legs. Akko didn’t feel it, but she got the message. Standing up, she looked at Sucy again for some reassurance, but the girl had already gone back to her potion.

Taking a deep breath, Akko exited the room.

 

Chariot came back to her room after an afternoon of working on what she was going to do next week, she instantly knew something was wrong.

There was a beeping sound. Her alarms didn’t sound like that, so there was only one device that could be the culprit. She instantly ran to the magitech tablet. _No no no no no no no,_ she panicked in her mind. Something was wrong in the lab, the door had opened without her authorization. Did someone enter to steal tech? It could be very, very dangerous.

She also noticed something even more dreadful.

The connection to the Fuel Spirit cubes was broken.

 

Constanze was still working on her device when, suddenly, someone dropped in the couch behind her. She didn’t dare look behind, because she knew who it would be. She didn’t have the heart to face her, not right now. Probably not ever again.

She didn’t have a choice, however, when the girl kept on poking her shoulder. It was really annoying. She turned around with a deadpan look.

Akko stood there, red faced, with a dumb smile showing. Her brown hair was slightly unkempt from the minecart ride, and her big red eyes were staring at her with strange intensity. Constanze’s eyes fell on Akko’s lips, and before Akko could say anything she turned around, back to her work. If you can’t see it, it’s not there. Stupid, but Akko was stupid too, so it might cancel out and make it smart.

Her shoulder was being poked again.

Constanze refused to look at Akko. Didn’t she get it? If she acted like nothing happened, they might be able to still have normal interactions in public, once Constanze got over her deep desire for-

Akko took hold of Constanze’s shoulder and forced her to spin, carrying with her a screwdriver and what was only the start of her device. She was forced to look into those big, red eyes again. Eyes surrounded by a pretty, pale face, which in turn was framed by a beautiful, silky brown hair. She tried to look away again, but Akko brought both hands up and took her head, squishing her cheeks. “Look at me!” Akko demanded. “I have something important to tell you, damn it!” She sounded angry. Was she? She had all the right to be. Maybe she would chastise Constanze for what she did, or worse, ask her why she ran away without explaining. Still, when looking at her this close, the tiny girl’s heart pounded with excitement and her face got as red as it could.

Or, so she thought. “I _like_ you too, Constanze,” Akko said, and Constanze realized she was wrong, because her face was now burning. “I know you don’t like speaking, but you could have said something, no need to steal a kiss from me!” The brunette explained.

Constanze was at a loss for words. Or, in this case, at a loss for thoughts. Had Akko just… Confessed? But what about all of her inner monologues? What about all of her imaginary scenarios and strategies to get over the rejection? All that worrying, wasted…

She started to laugh. Akko cocked her head, lowering her hands to place them on Constanze’s shoulders, and slowly but surely she started to laugh too. Constanze stepped forward, burying her face on Akko as her laugh mixed with tears falling from her eyes. She was so relieved she couldn’t help but tear up. They slowly stopped laughing as Akko hugged Constanze, and all that remained to the tiny girl was the sound of two heartbeats. Hers and Akko’s.

The brunette broke the silence. “So, what do you say? Not that I’ve been in any relationships, but… Wanna go out?”

Constanze looked up. Akko looked down. Constanze stood on her tiptoes, not quite reaching the height she wished, being left barely a centimeter away from her goal. Akko leaned just a little.

 Their lips met, and Constanze’s heart finally got release for that feeling it had been so desperately wanting to fulfill.

 

Chariot entered New Moon Tower about half an hour before sunset. She held her tablet in place, and was starting to get really, really worried. She climbed stairs, panting, until she reached the door to the lab. It was, as she had seen before, open.

She looked inside, but didn’t see any obvious differences in the landscape. Every big machine was in place, all the valuable items were in place. It looked as if nothing was missing. But when she turned the corner and saw the trash toppled and no cubes inside, her fears were confirmed.

Without stopping to think about it, she ran outside the lab and looked around. The perpetrator had to be gone by now, she hadn’t found them while going up and even if they ran up, they probably had a broom to fly away. She felt a chill down her spine. Why would someone want to steal the Fuel Spirit cubes? It couldn’t be Croix. She would never do that. Not again, at least.

She started to climb downstairs, thinking. She was growing increasingly anxious. Twelve cubes weren’t a lot, but if someone managed to reverse-engineer them and created more…

Something moved. She barely saw it, but she instantly casted a spell and jumped from the stairs all the way down to the base of the tower. The central pillar stood before her, and behind it she had seen movement.

Slowly, she rounded it. Was that… Purple light?

Then she saw it. An exoskeleton, but instead of the usual yellow, it was the characteristic black and glowing neon color of the Fuel Spirit cubes.

_Fuel Spirit. Those things can be fueled literally by spirits._

The exoskeleton, of barely a humanoid shape, was almost the same as Akko’s, as far as Chariot could tell. The only visible difference was that the head piece was a full ring, instead of just being a C.

When it moved, it was faster than Chariot expected. She barely managed to dodge a punch from its handless arm, and she spun as she dodged, ready to kick it.

However, when she moved, a Fuel Spirit cube came out and hit her in the knee, making her stumble. The cube went back to its place instantly, and Chariot tried to stand up instantly.

But it was too late.

The head piece fell on top of her.


	13. Fleeting.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, shit went downhill fast.

The kiss was warm and soft. Neither girl was experienced with kisses, but they didn’t need to be, for they knew this was the best kiss humanity had seen. In that moment, nothing else mattered. Akko was internally freaking out, not knowing exactly how to continue after the kiss, but for now, she just wanted it to last forever.

_‘Constanze. Girlfriend. Cute.’_

Akko raised her head, startled, earning her a stranged look from Constanze. _Way to kill the mood,_ she said to the spirit, who didn’t seem to understand what she was talking about. Constanze tugged on her clothes curiously. “Sorry, the spirit distracted me.”

The mentioning of the spirit seemed to take Constanze out of her romantic mood and her expression hardened. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and stepping back. Akko almost pulled her into the embrace again, but something on Constanze’s stand held her back. Instead, she simply stepped next to her and looked as Constanze laid the screwdriver and strange thing she had in her hand back on the desk. The German girl pointed at the thing, then at Akko. Or more precisely, at Akko’s neck. “Oh, is that something that will help me?” Akko asked, and Constanze nodded.

She would ask for details, but she suspected that even if Constanze explained things with words she would still don’t get it, so instead she stepped back and let the girl go back to work.

Her heart fluttered watching the tiny girl work. Suddenly, all of their interactions in the past got a new context to them. She thanked her past self for being so stubborn in helping her out, and for causing the whole exoskeleton fiasco. Of course, it had brought some pain to both of them, but if it lead to this, then could she really complain?

This was probably the happiest she had felt since the time when she had received her approval letter from Luna Nova. Actually, she was probably happier than that time.

Nothing could possibly ruin this.

 

Or maybe something could.

After about an hour, she suddenly heard something from above and she jumped out of the couch right as someone dropped into it.

It was Chariot. She was wearing an exoskeleton, and she didn’t have to think much to pick out that it was also being possessed by Fuel Spirit cubes. Her body moved on its own to stand between her teacher and Constanze. “Chariot?” Akko asked, heart pounding. The ex-idol looked at her with purple eyes, completely expressionless.

The exoskeleton she was wearing was similar to hers, but something felt off. The obvious difference was the head piece, going around in a full circle instead of the horseshoe-shape of Akko’s, but there was something else. It was a little thicker, and maybe a little longer. While Akko’s exoskeleton stopped about two centimeters before the wrist, Chariot’s went all the way down to hers. Akko also noticed that, if she looked close enough, it actually looked like there were two layers of metal on top of each other. She didn’t have time to analyze further, however.

When the teacher moved, Akko _knew_ it was over. It took her barely an instant to realize that Chariot was physically superior than her in a way that Lin-Lin or Verochka hadn’t been. Not only because of the age gap, but because chariot was fit. Akko knew it, Chariot trained constantly and kept her body in peak form. It had helped her be badass, it helped her against Verochka.

No-one could have guessed that it would backfire so spectacularly, for when she moved, she _moved._

Akko lost sight of her. Chariot’s movement was so fast that she left her field of view before she realized what had happened, and even with her heightened reflexes it was too late, for when she turned her head, a punch was coming straight to her face.

She raised an arm to block, and she managed to angle it in just the perfect way to use the exoskeleton’s metal as the blocker. However, the impact was so strong that her guard was completely broken, her arm punched away as if it was barely paper, and the fiery hair of the teacher whipped as she spun, jumped over the stunned Akko, and landed behind Constanze.

Akko cried out as she tried to turn and stop her, but she wasn’t fast enough. Chariot took the tiny girl and ducked as Akko’s hand passed over her, and one of her legs shot out to kick Akko out of her feet.

The brunette fell, watching impotently as Chariot ran and sat on the little chair sticking out from the wall. Constanze tried to fight, but her movements didn’t even register to the possessed teacher as she pulled a lever. Akko finally hit the ground as Chariot was lost from sight, and Akko ran towards the metallic harness on the hangar part of the secret base where she also pulled a lever and was shot upwards.

When she reached Constanze’s room, the window was broken. She instantly jumped out, not even bothering to look out, and as she fell she saw Chariot go into the forest.

She ran, but stopped at the limit. She looked around. Despite the teacher’s glowing exoskeleton, she couldn’t see her.

Her legs lost strength and she fell to her knees, feeling numb. It had been so fast… Too fast. What had happened? Why was Chariot possessed? Wasn’t the evil spirit trapped? Why did that exoskeleton look as if it was taken over by Fuel Spirit cubes? Why didn’t her spirit warn her beforehand, like it did the previous times?

Why did Chariot take Constanze?

Why wasn’t she able to protect her?

 

When Amanda came back to Luna Nova it was already an hour past sunset. She and Jasminka had gone to a night club – or, well, more like an afternoon club – where they had danced and had fun. After a scolding about the rule that all students should always be back at school before nightfall, they both went straight to their room.

Where they found the broken window. Amanda instantly felt sick, not even wanting to think too hard about what had broken it, but she still looked outside. Despite the darkness, she was able to make out a figure that looked awfully familiar in the distance. Akko was kneeling in the ground, looking at the forest, not moving.

She pointed it to Jasminka, and they both walked out of the room and through the short hallway to the red team’s room. They knocked, waiting just a few seconds as Lotte opened the door and looked at them with curious eyes. “Hello.” She said, stepping aside.

“No, no. Ehm…” Amanda didn’t exactly know how to ask this. “Is Akko allright? I saw her down there and, well, she looks kind of… Weird,” the redhead pointed at the window. Inside the room, Sucy raised an eyebrow and opened the window to look down.

“What is that idiot doing?” She asked, and despite the attempt to hide it, worry still slipped into her voice. Lotte instantly went to look, taking a few seconds to find where the brunette was.

“Think we should go and check on her?” Lotte asked Sucy. Sucy shrugged, which was basically a yes, and both girls looked at the green team members. Amanda nodded, not needing more to be said, and the four girls left the room and made their way downstairs, saying hi to students they knew as they crossed them on the hallways. As they were about to go down to the first floor, however, Lotte paused. “Diana might want to see this,” she said.

Amanda rolled her eyes. “Do we really need to get her? What is she going to do? Scold us for being out at night?” The redhead scoffed. She didn’t dislike Diana, not as much as she once did, but the blonde still got on her nerves most of the time. So… Prim and aristocratic and overall annoying. “Fine, whatever.”

After five minutes and a quick explanation, the blonde indeed accompanied them, and the five girls went outside the building and rounded it until they reached the Japanese girl kneeling in the darkness.

Amanda lit her wand to be able to see her face, and it was instantly obvious that the girl had been crying. “Akko?” She called, getting no response. Akko was staring straight into the trees, as if waiting for something. Whatever it was, Amanda didn’t thought was there. “Akko!” She snapped her finger in front of her face. Still no response.

“Well, if she’s like that, I guess I can use her for an experiment…” Sucy cackled, trying to intimidate Akko out of her state. She frowned when it didn’t work. Lotte gently prodded, her, asking if she was ok, and Jasminka offered her some snacks. Neither of those things worked.

“She’s in a state of shock,” Diana explained. “Whatever happened is worrisome at best,” she brought a hand up to her chin, a habit she seemed to have when she was thinking hard. “We may need to get her to a teacher.”

Amanda rolled her eyes. Of course Diana would suggest that. However, as she thought about teachers, she realized something. “Wait, Akko said she wouldn’t let go of Constanze until they talked. Think she actually escaped?” Out of pure instinct, she looked around, though she obviously didn’t see the tiny girl.

“She’s probably in her workshop,” Diana said, but Amanda didn’t buy it. Constanze wouldn’t be working at her workshop when there was a window to be fixed. True, Constanze wasn’t a carpenter, but her stanbots were, and she would never pass the chance to let them prove their worth.

And, in the case she didn’t want that, she could have just used a spell.

“She’s not.”

The five girls instantly snapped their attention back to Akko. The girl was still in the ground, but something about her eyes had changed.

“The spirit is possessing Chariot. It took Constanze,” the brunette explained. Amanda felt something deeper from her voice. Something else had happened and she could guess what it was. Sucy opened her mouth slightly, her usually indifferent face cracking and showing some genuine worry, which only made Amanda more suspicious.

All of the girls took a few seconds to digest what had been said.

“The spirit ran into the forest again, then? Piece of shit sure likes those fucking trees,” Amanda spat, completely skipping over denial and going straight to anger. “Come on people, let’s go after it,” she said, pointing her wand at the woods.

“Chariot’s fast _and_ strong,” Akko said. “You don’t hold a single chance. _I_ don’t hold a single chance,” she sounded distant, which was understandable. So, Amanda did what any good friend would do.

She kicked Akko in the face.

Akko fell to the ground, looking up in surprise. She had obviously barely felt the kick, and she had likely fallen more out of reflex than the strength of Amanda’s leg. “If you going to be like that, get the fucking exoskeleton out of your body and I’ll go save Constanze,” the redhead said.

“Amanda! Give her some time, she needs-” Lotte started, but Diana interrupted.

“No, she’s right. We can’t allow more time to pass. What if the spirit is still moving? Each passing second is a second Constanze could be further away,” the blonde explained. “Akko, we need all of the details,” she looked harshly at the brunette, who was still surprised in the ground. “We have no time for moping.”

“Hey, Akko,” Sucy stepped forward. “Are you really going to let the spirit take your girlfriend?”

Of the group, only Diana seemed surprised to hear this. She didn’t comment on it, however, as they all saw Akko’s expression change. Moping had never really been Akko’s style, Amanda knew this. She also knew that, despite her being a total fuckup, she would never actually fail when it really mattered.

All she needed, sometimes, was a little push. Or in this case, a kick.

Akko stood, eyes meeting with her friends’. “I think I’m going to need a plan.”


	14. Rescue.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If someone takes your girlfriend, what do you do?  
> Well, go after them, of course.

Constanze wanted to scream. She wasn’t in pain or anything, but she wasn’t feeling particularly calm. She now sat in a moonlit corridor. Wherever this was it had the same architecture as Luna Nova, but in ruins. Debris from the ceiling and walls crowded the long hallway, and the cold breeze of night brought Constanze a cloud of dust. Coughing, she looked to her side, where Chariot stood motionless, looking at the other end of the hallway without an expression.

She wasn’t wearing an exoskeleton. She was wearing _two_ exoskeletons.

And that’s what scared Constanze.

Akko probably hadn’t realized it, but she wasn’t the only one in danger. No human could take the compounded effects of two of her exoskeletons. Both designs were fairly similar, but both were failed too. One had been too weak, her careful spell-casting on the metal gone wrong. While it would somewhat enhance the body, most of the magic was actually lost, and the frame had been completely ruined. Using it would only make the last remains of magic drain from it, leaving it at nothing but a simple piece of junk tied together. The other one had a problem similar to the other two, being hard to regulate. However, the actual failure on this one had been of a much more simple nature: It didn’t bound well. Using it was nearly impossible, as it would come off with simple movements.

The spirit had, apparently, fixed both issues with the Fuel Spirit cubes. Constanze wished she knew more about them, but for what she could pick up at a simple glance, both exoskeletons were now fused, tied together by the magitech devices. Used together, they could not only seriously hurt Chariot, they could kill her. Constanze wasn’t sure of exactly how far the hateful spirit was willing to go. Would it kill? Did it even have morals? It seemed to Constanze that it had been constantly escalating. First, pillows. Then the marbles. Then it had just resorted to punching.

Now it had kidnapped her.

What would be its plan this time? Try to get its friend back by threatening her? Why hadn’t it done so right then and there, if that was the case? Of course, a spirit didn’t really have to follow logic. Maybe it was trying to simply follow tropes from superhero stories to draw its friend in without the fear of interference from outer sources.

Whatever the case was, Constanze wasn’t going to sit still.

She still had her device, and she had been cautiously releasing a signal that should have been picked up by her stanbots, giving away her location. The stanbots couldn’t leave the workshop without her help, however, so she hoped Akko had some reason to go back to the workshop.

If she didn’t, then Constanze would most certainly die of dehydration, because she was already pretty damn thirsty. She hadn’t had anything to drink for at least three hours now, and she feared no one would pick up on her signals.

Well, if anything else, she had already a goal.

Build an elevator for the stanbots as soon as she got back to school. Because, in the end, she trusted Akko to save her. Even if she had mixed feelings about the brunette fighting Chariot, she also smiled at the thought of her coming to her rescue.

Hopefully it would be sooner rather than later.

“Convince friend,” Chariot suddenly spoke, though it was not her voice that came out of the mouth. “To come back.”

Constanze was shocked by the phrase. It was simple, but it showed a level of understanding far beyond what Akko’s own spirit had managed. Chariot looked at her. “Want brother back.” Chariot continued. Constanze didn’t know how to react. The voice, it didn’t sound hateful. No, it was sorrowful.

The German girl took a few seconds. The spirit didn’t seem hurried. How to tell the spirit that had kidnapped that she had actually tried to talk the spirit out of the exoskeleton and it had failed?

Didn’t seem like an option. So she went for the second best thing.

She nodded, hoping that it wouldn’t realize she was lying.

 

Akko was crouching, looking at the ruins that led up to the Fountain of Polaris. After the scene she’d made back at the forest, they’d all had gone to Constanze’s workshop. There, the stanbots had gone crazy trying to explain Akko where the German girl was. Akko had felt stupid as hell for not going to check that out before, but she had also almost started crying in relief when she found out that Constanze was ok and actually quite close.

Well, she hoped she was ok. Because if that spirit had harmed her in any way…

Suddenly, a pale green light hit her eyes, shot from a wand from the other side of the ruins. That was Diana’s signal, someone had indeed spotted Chariot in there.

Akko stood, ready to go in. The plan would work. The plan _had_ to work.

She walked slowly. It was hard, since she just wanted to run in there and rescue Constanze, but she needed to have some patience. _‘Can’t. Hidden. Brother,’_ Akko’s spirit said. It was communicating to Akko that for some reason it could no longer feel its friend. Akko suspected it was because of the Fuel Spirit cubes, but that was just her interpretation, which wouldn’t really hold up in a real conversation, since she had absolutely no idea of how those cubes actually worked.

But she did know one thing about them: They were unpredictable. Diana had checked their records on the New Moon Tower lab. Anger was the most powerful emotion to fuel them, but not the most unpredictable. While at first Akko believed the purple color had come from the hateful spirit controlling them, she had now realized that it was stupid to believe that. No, the color represented the emotions that were fueling the cubes.

In this case, it seemed to be a mixture of anger and sadness.

The most powerful and the most unpredictable of emotions.

There wasn’t a single day that passed without Akko thinking back to the missile incident. It had marked her life. Outside school, people seemed to worship her and Diana. When she had gone home during summer vacations, she found fans in the street almost every week. She didn’t mind the attention, but it was simple proof of the fact that she was, indeed, famous now. All because of a missile gone bunkers because of rage.

Akko knew that, if she pushed hard enough, the remaining fuel spirit cubes would go out of control too. However, this time, they were too weak to do any real damage once they left Chariot’s body. They had studied the blueprints of the exoskeletons remaining, and had decided that their flaws were somehow fixed by those cubes. Once they were out of the picture, the spirit would be powerless.

Well, either that or they were all fucked.

Akko stepped into the ruins. Her feet left prints in the dust, and the only thing she could hear was the rustling of leaves and her own echoing footsteps.

She stepped into a long corridor, one she had previously explored with Andrew. A part of her wondered where the giant bear that used to be around was. Probably deeper into the ruins, or maybe it had moved on to living in the forest. The other part of her knew that thinking of this was just a coping mechanism.

One it didn’t need, because at the end of the hallway, she saw Constanze. The girl, still in her uniform, was lit by the silver-blue moonlight. Framed by the corridor, face dirtied with some dust, leaves in her now loose hair and uniform and tired posture… It was beautiful. Constanze was beautiful.

_‘Beautiful,’_ the spirit repeated. Akko realized that this was the first time she had actually seen Constanze as such. She had always been cute, but now she felt as if that was an incredible understatement.

However, Chariot wasn’t in sight. She had probably heard Akko coming and had hidden. From the other side of the hallway, Constanze raised a hand, telling her not to approach. The brunette hesitated. She wanted to run for her, hug her, kiss her. However, she couldn’t get close unless she knew where Chariot was.

Well, there was a way.

She allowed the strength to drain from her muscles, her energy to deplete. Instead, she suddenly had to squint her eyes at the sudden burst of light as the moonlight grew even brighter than the sun. The rustling of leaves was now similar to white noise, almost unbearable, and she could smell the grass, mold, dust, the trees outside, her own body sweat. Her hunger seemed to amplify too, and I was almost hard to remain standing as the slight irritation she felt in her feet from being in a crouch for too long amplified in power.

However, she also picked a few other things from the noise. A couple of different breathings. And, when closing her eyes, and focusing all of her mind into picking out the noise, two heartbeats besides her own.

Chariot was…

She returned to her normal – well, as normal as it could be – state and prepared. Then, she took a couple of steps forward.

And jumped.

Holding herself against the ceiling, Chariot hung above the corridor in one of the holes. Her shadow, falling upon debris, hadn’t been distinguishable, and the hole was in just the right angle to not be seen from the start of the hallway. Akko took her by surprise, punching her with everything she had, and both of them flew outside the corridor and fell in the grass outside. Trees left a little area around the ruins alone, which meant that now, nothing stood between Akko and her teacher.

Chariot moved. She was still too fast for Akko’s reflexes, but for the first time since having it, Akko had read the blueprints of her own exoskeleton. The thing that made it stand out from all the others was the ability to completely regulate how much magic was used. Including where it was used, which meant that she could take away her strength to enhance her senses drastically.

Or the opposite.

Suddenly, the world lost color. Her nose appeared clogged, her mouth felt strangely numb, and all the noises she had been picking up dampened. She didn’t completely nullify her senses, of course, but now, she could actually see what her teacher was going to do.

And dodge.

She jumped back. Chariot was still faster and stronger than her, but if Akko could react in time, then she wouldn’t have to take damage. Instead, she went over the plan on her head. The distance gave her time to see Chariot putting too much weight in one leg specifically. Akko instantly ducked, allowing the red-haired woman to jump over her head with a spinning kick. However, as she was in the air, Akko took the chance to speak. “You know, stupid spirit, your friend is _never_ coming back with you!” She cried as chariot fell behind her. The sudden movement of the adult was a little too abrupt to be normal, and Akko smiled.

Chariot took on a battle stance, and moved forward. Akko took one herself, though she didn’t really know what she was doing. When she got in range, Chariot threw a right jab, which Akko avoided, and a left hook. Akko ducked, and jumped backwards, using her hands to do a somersault right as a leg swept where she had been standing a second before. “You’ve become a villain! Your friend _hates_ you now!” She said as she moved, prompting the spirit to move even faster than before. She couldn’t dodge, so she raised a hand to block. Her body was slightly stronger than before, and she managed to use the metal of the exoskeleton to take most of the damage. “You’re never getting him back!” She didn’t know if spirits even had gender, but they did seem to call each other ‘brother.’ Or, well, the spirit in Akko’s mind had called the other brother, once.

Well, not that it mattered at the moment.

Her comment earned an expression. Chariot’s face twisted in an unnatural manner. It wasn’t really an emotion, but just a bunch of random face muscles acting up on reaction to the spirit’s rage.

Rage that made the purple of the Fuel Spirit cubes to shine brighter. Chariot moved faster, and this time, Akko wasn’t able to raise her hand in time to block the punch coming.

It took her on the side of the head, and everything went black.


	15. Rescue II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even after almost dying, Akko manages to not do it.  
> Now all that's left is beating one mean spirit.

_Akko stood, alone, in the darkness. She felt horrible. She hadn’t eaten in days, and her magic was running low. At this rate, she was going to die. The tree that had been feeding her had to use up all of its stored magic and now she had nothing to suck on._

_Fear. That was her state of being._

_However, as she started to give up, something changed. Somehow, she started to feel better. Magic. She was draining magic from somewhere. And, as she doubted, a light appeared._

_A purple light._

_From the darkness, another spirit appeared. It was like her, mostly, just purple. It had kind eyes and she could feel it giving her energy. They communicated through it. No need for words, sounds, or even thoughts. This sharing of energy was enough. She could feel its willingness to help, its desire to save those in need. It could feel her gratitude, and she promised that she was one day going to make up for the favor._

 

_The world shifted. She was now looking at a human. Or, more precisely, at his hands. He was reading a comic. Her friend had taught her how to read, and she now fully understood where it had gotten its drive to help. Superheroes. Superheroes were saviors of the weak, defenders of justice. Before this, she hadn’t really understood abstract concepts like those. But now she wished to do more. She wished to be like her brother._

_From comics, they moved on to movies. Soon, they had watched or read everything they could. There were a ton of different types of heroes, but she loved most of them. Inadvertently, she had started to dream of being a superhero._

_When the short human offered her the deal, she agreed to it. The chance she had been waiting for so long, finally here._

_However, something changed within her. Her intentions had been transmitting to her brother, and now, it was sad. Sad because she would abandon It. That was not the case, she only wanted to repay its kindness by helping others. However, It didn’t want that. It wanted to keep her safe. The world was too dangerous._

_She tried to argue, but it was futile. However, she was not going to back down, and so she entered the exoskeleton, bounding herself to it. The black haired human girl didn’t know any of her internal struggles as she continued working on the artifact._

_But her friend, her brother, was really sad._

_And angry._

_After all these years, she had abandoned It. She didn’t know how to explain. She didn’t think it would help to explain._

_Then, the connection they had shared all that time was cut. She didn’t need it anymore, the world was now overflowing with magic. But they had kept the connection out of love._

_Apparently, it wasn’t strong enough. Akko felt tears on her cheeks. Why had her friend left? Why couldn’t It see?_

Akko opened her eyes. She was crying in the ground, face against the grass, her mind a mess of thoughts that didn’t belong to her and unexplained feelings. Where was she? What had happened?

She looked around, only to find Chariot looming over her. Great, she was there to help. Chariot was basically her second mom at this point, and she was happy to see that the teacher leaned down, probably to pick her up. She did, actually, pick her up. However, there was one problem.

It was by the foot.

The teacher carried the dazed Akko back towards the building, jumping through one of the holes in the ceiling. Akko barely understood what was going on. Wasn’t she watching movies or something? Why was Chariot being so rough? Why did she feel so bad? Why was everything in black and white?

Then, she was dropped in the ground. She didn’t really feel the hit, but her body didn’t end up in a comfortable position, with one arm under her and one of her legs against a rock. Someone instantly knelt beside her. Akko had trouble looking up. She thought she heard something, but she felt as if her ears were plugged. If she could only…

Suddenly, color returned to the world. She picked up the smell of dirt, and she started hearing a panicked breathing while someone pushed on her shoulder.

And the pain.

What she had thought of as a simple headache suddenly was unbearable. The piercing pain didn’t let her think, numbing her mind in a different way than before. However, the sharp pain also brought her lucidity. She finally looked up, seeing Constanze over her with teary eyes. She had her wand out, and was casting some kind of spell. Akko couldn’t hear – all she could focus on was the pain – but it was enough. Now everything was coming back to her. The evil spirit hadn’t killed her, as she suspected. _‘Strong. Resist,’_ the spirit in her head said. She nodded, and then tried to focus. She needed to bring the pain down to a tolerable level. Could her skull be cracked? She didn’t know, but the pain was too strong to be normal.

She shifted in place, trying to find a more comfortable position. Then, she felt something else.

 _‘Akko, stay still,’_ Constanze’s voice sounded in her mind. _‘Little spirit, please leave her. She can’t take this anymore, she…’_

“Constanze,” Akko interrupted. Constanze stopped, looking at her eyes.

Akko smiled, bringing a hand up to the German girl’s neck. Despite the pain, she raised her head and pecked the girl’s lips. Constanze looked at her with confusion. _‘Akko, you’re delirious. Please don’t move, I’ll-’_

Akko stopped listening. Intuitively she managed to drain all magic from her brain, severing the connection. She didn’t want Constanze to know what she was thinking. Not right now. She froze as she noticed what Akko had done. Akko then went back to her desensitized state, and the pain finally let down, letting her think more clearly. Chariot watched from a short distance away. So, if Akko’s mind wasn’t still dazed by the hit, then she guessed that the spirit had brought her all the way out here because it didn’t want to get anyone else caught up in the fight.

It wasn’t evil, she had realized during her dream. It was just misguided. It wouldn’t kill her, not on purpose. But it would probably end up doing it while pursuing Akko’s spirit.

But Akko wasn’t going to let it go. Constanze was trying to save her, but she didn’t understand. The other spirit needed to be contained. Akko was certain that with time she could make it understand. But if they let it go now, then nothing would change.

_‘Thank you.’_

Akko was surprised. This was the first time the spirit had actually said more than a single unconnected word. Draining her senses to the bare minimum she needed to be able to function, she finally stood.

“You know,” she started, looking at the teacher. With her ears barely hearing, with her vision blurred, with her tact barely active and with her smell and taste completely gone, she felt strangely disconnected from the world. “If you had only accepted his wishes, none of this would’ve happened.”

Chariot looked at Constanze, who was looking worried at Akko. Then, she took a battle stance.

And then, Amanda dropped from the ceiling, kicking her in the face.

Chariot fell to the ground, stunned. Amanda fell with a smirk. She was wearing Lin-Lin’s exoskeleton, the bowl-like headpiece making her look pretty funny. The spirit seemed to have trouble understanding what just happened, for the red-haired woman remained down for a few seconds.

Seconds enough. After Amanda, Jasminka followed, wearing Verochka’s exoskeleton with its thick metal pieces. She grabbed Chariot with her enhanced strength, holding her in place. “What took you so long, Amanda?” Akko said in a louder voice than needed.

“Sorry, it was hard getting used to the movement of this thing.” Amanda explained. Akko supposed she was right, at first she hadn’t had full control of her movements either.

Chariot struggled, but Jasminka was big and strong, and her exoskeleton was focused solely on strength. Chariot wouldn’t be freeing herself anytime soon.

“You’re never getting your brother back,” Akko said. “He’s going to stay with me forever. We’re going to become superheroes and go away, to where you will never be able to follow.”

Chariot kept struggling. Jasminka seemed to have some semblance of trouble keeping the woman under control, but Akko needed to do this. She prompted the spirit to talk, and it did so from her mouth. “Goodbye.”

Akko turned, as if leaving. Of course, she wasn’t really going to go. Where would she go? But hopefully the purple spirit wouldn’t realize the problem with the whole scene. Akko no longer heard the struggles after walking a couple seconds. Her hearing was really, really bad right now, but she needed it in case something went wrong.

And it did, of course.

The spirit warned her that something was wrong, and she turned to see how a couple of Fuel Spirit cubes flew away from the teacher’s exoskeleton and fused to Jasminka’s forearms. This was enough to weaken her and allow Chariot to free herself. Both cubes immediately came back to her.

Amanda kicked. Her kick was fast, but Chariot was faster. She avoided the foot, grabbed Amanda’s leg, and swung the redhead over her head. Then, as she released, she didn’t wait and turned to Akko. It seemed they were going to push a little further.

Chariot went for a tackle. In the narrow hallway, it was a good choice. Akko ran towards her teacher too. Then, at the last second, she dropped to the ground and slid, arms open, tripping Chariot. The teacher fell, but instantly rolled and got back on her feet even faster than Akko. Akko didn’t have time to get up fully before Chariot threw a kick at her chest. The brunette stepped to the side, trying to emulate Chariot’s movement from before, but when she grabbed the leg Chariot jumped with the other, spinning mid-air and kicking at her head, using Akko’s own grab as an anchor.

Akko let go and crouched, avoiding the kick by a shadow’s width, and Chariot spun in the air. She fell to the ground on her back, and Akko jumped back right as she jumped with her hands and fell on her feet.

Akko stepped to the side to dodge. Not the teacher, but her friend. Amanda ran from behind – far faster than Akko – and jumped with grace. Chariot raised a hand to block, but the redhead was swift and flexible. She changed legs mid-air, and the teacher reacted a second too late as the kick impacted on her face, making her stumble backwards.

Akko took the chance. She jumped, to the wall, and bounced from there to the other. Chariot followed her movements as she started bouncing around the hallway, but she couldn’t focus too much on her because of the redhead. Amanda kept kicking and dodging Chariot, and when the teacher finally looked up again, Akko was upon her.

Taking off from the wall, Akko tackled the teacher with such strength that they broke one of the windows and flew outside again. They rolled on the ground before Chariot pushed Akko, and both of them fell into a crouch, looking at the other. “You can’t beat me!” Akko shouted. “You’ll _never_ see him again! _Never!_ ”

Chariot got the same reaction as before. However, before she could move like she had done, Amanda appeared trying a kick. This time, however, Chariot moved and grabbed Amanda’s leg without effort. Amanda spun, managing to free herself, and fell to the ground. Chariot kicked at her, but the redhead rolled, avoiding the kick and standing with a smirk. She kicked at the teacher again.

And something went wrong. Her face suddenly twisted in pain, and she opened her mouth to cry out, but it didn’t matter. That moment of hesitance was enough for chariot to punch her chest, and she was sent to the ground in a single motion, hitting hard.

Akko didn’t have time to worry. She took the distraction and moved. The older woman snapped her head at her, ready to block whatever could be coming. However, Akko stopped in front of her and spoke. Or, actually, the spirit spoke.

“I hate you.” Its high pitched voice said.

That was the last straw.

The purple glow suddenly turned a much deeper violet, and after a few seconds, the Fuel Spirit cubes broke formation, flying away from Chariot and into the forest. Then, one of the exoskeletons Chariot was wearing fell off. Akko relaxed, but the teacher moved again, punching her. The brunette barely felt it. When the teacher tried to punch again, Akko just took her hand and stepped forward, making her trip. She fell to the ground. “Now!” she cried.

From the forest, a magic-nullifying spell came. It hit Chariot and the magic in the remaining exoskeleton was dispersed. This time, Akko was the one who casted the spell and trapped the spirit. Then, she sighed, returning her senses to normal.

And fell unconscious.

 

Jasminka, no longer wearing the exoskeleton, walked besides Constanze. The German girl was trying very hard not to take off at a sprint to check on Akko. Besides Akko, Chariot and Amanda lay on the ground, one grunting from pain, the other unconscious. Above them, a pale green bubble containing a purple spirit floated.

Diana was walking from the opposite direction, her wand raised in the air as she carried a metallic sphere behind her. Inside, Constanze guessed, would be the Fuel Spirit cubes that had run away. Since they couldn’t directly contain them with magic, they had to do it in a more mundane way.

When the green team members finally reached the three fighters, Constanze let herself fall to her knees and took Akko. The girl had fallen face first into the ground. She used her wand to carefully turn Akko around, making her head rest on her lap. Diana arrived a minute later. She didn’t say anything as she checked Amanda, cringing slightly when the girl showed her leg. The knee and a part of the calf were swollen. “This is why these exoskeletons are dangerous.” She finally spoke. She took off the helmet of Amanda’s exoskeleton, and then slowly took it off. After she was done, she started healing the redhead.

Constanze slowly ran her fingers through Akko’s head. She was strangely numb. After what Akko had done, the mix of happiness, worry and guilt had overwhelmed her to the point where she had just shut off emotions.

Well, most of them. She leaned forward, softly kissing Akko’s lips.

“I wouldn’t want to interrupt your moment,” Diana said. “But I believe Akko is in dire need to be healed too.”

Constanze lingered on the brunette’s lips a little longer, then went back to her seating position. She watched, calm, as Diana worked. The blonde had a look of pure concentration as she slowly fixed Akko, particularly when she reached the brunette’s head.

“She’s going to be fine, but that punch was really dangerous,” Diana explained to the barely listening German girl. Constanze nodded absently, feeling Akko’s warmth.

Then, she pointed her wand at the exoskeletons Chariot was wearing. With a quick spell, she dismantled both. Destroying things was so much easier than building them. She pointed at the remaining exoskeleton in sight, destroying it too. Entropy, that’s what it was called, wasn’t it? Destroying things required much less energy than crating them. She stood, carefully laying Akko on the ground, and walked back to the ruins. Diana and Jasminka watched her without saying anything as she jumped inside the corridor and destroyed the remaining exoskeleton.

Turning, she looked at the mess she had caused. Because she was under no delusions, this was her fault. Three witches on the ground, harmed. All of her friends paranoid for a week. A project that took her months to complete being an absolute failure.

She walked back towards the girls and sat next to Akko. The brunette would forgive everything, of course. No, not forgive – she didn’t even consider Constanze guilty in the first place. This was at odds with Constanze’s feelings. She felt guilty, and useless, and a piece of shit. She felt like dying, and she didn’t ever want to build anything again. If she was a good mechanic, none of this would have happened. Yet, Akko still liked her.

Constanze felt like she needed to do something about that, so she waited.

After a few minutes, Akko regained consciousness. She opened her eyes slowly, dumb smile showing on her face when she saw the German girl next to her. Constanze didn’t let her say anything as she laid herself next to Akko, getting her mouth close to the brunette’s ear.

And then, with the faintest of breaths, she spoke.

“I like you.”

Akko instantly sat upright, looking at her with surprise. However, her surprise gave pass to a wide grin. Constanze knew what followed, and prepared herself.

Indeed, Akko pulled her into a hug. A hug she complemented with kisses in the forehead and face, and that she topped with the lips.

Constanze had decided that, if she was going to make it through this, she would trust Akko with everything she had, which included feelings and thoughts.

 

 


	16. Device.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Constanze is finally working on a way to deal with Akko's exoskeleton.  
> However, things might not go as she wanted them to.

“I don’t know how wise it was to push them together,” Amanda said while eating. She and Jasminka were sitting with Lotte and Sucy, since both had incomplete teams. “Now Constanze has even less of a reason to leave the workshop.” The cafeteria around them was busy, with loud chatter and students moving around constantly. A few tables away, the blue team sat. Amanda almost invited them to join, but she was honestly not in the right mood to deal with aristocrats.

“Let them be,” Sucy spoke while chewing on something. “I’d rather Akko spends her days breaking Constanze’s stuff and not mine,” she swallowed. Amanda cocked her head, since she couldn’t argue with that logic, she decided to let it go.

“I think it’s cute,” Lotte commented. “I didn’t think Akko could fall in love, but now she’s always talking about Constanze and her work.” She fixed her glasses in place, smiling.

“Constanze too,” Jasminka added, though Amanda wondered how could she sound so clear with so much food in her mouth. Practice, she guessed. Lotte nodded at Jasminka’s comment. She was a romantic, she liked cheesy stuff like that. Amanda thought it was kind of annoying, mostly because she barely saw anything of her friend since the end of what now everyone called ‘The Exoskeleton Arc’ about ten days ago. While Constanze said this was because she was working on how to remove Akko’s exoskeleton, the redhead knew she also enjoyed being alone with Akko down there.

She might have gone to check on them, but she was half afraid of catching them in the middle of a very private moment. It was hard to imagine Akko and Constanze doing anything more than kissing, but she suspected that was because she kind of saw them both as kids. Constanze in body, and Akko in mind.

However, she guessed she couldn’t complain much, since both girls seemed happy. She needed to get herself a girlfriend too.

 

Constanze was almost finished with her device. The spirit had refused to leave Akko, no matter how much they had talked about it, so this was the only choice. Now that the other spirit was imprisoned in a way that would make it impossible for it to escape – a magic bubble was not as safe as they had assumed, so they sent it to the spirit control authorities – Akko was certain that letting it free was the best choice anyways.

But Constanze suspected there was another reason of why she now wanted to get the exoskeleton removed. She didn’t like to think about it, because if she was wrong it would be very, very embarrassing, but she couldn’t really think of more reasons for why the brunette would want to give up feeling so powerful.

Another thing she couldn’t figure out was why she was still bothering her at the moment.

“Constanze,” the girl poked her shoulder insistently. Constanze tried to ignore it, but she was just so… Annoying. “Constanze…” If it weren’t for Akko, then Constanze would have probably been done with the device three days ago. “Connie~” Akko used that nickname when she was teasing. Sighing, Constanze finally turned to face the brunette.

She was wearing just a white t-shirt and a pair of shorts, since she didn’t have to use her uniform down here. That was kind of a pain to Constanze, because it was very distracting to see her girlfriend showing that much skin. It wasn’t unusual for Akko, but more and more Constanze found her eyes drawn towards that perfect body.

She needed to focus, but she didn’t have the heart to throw Akko out. She wanted to spend time with her. Too bad Akko was an idiot, though.

Akko extended her arms and pushed Constanze into a hug. She had been doing this at least once a day for the past week, and while Constanze wasn’t annoyed by it, she did think that Akko _could_ wait until she was done to do it. The German girl let Akko kiss her head, her forehead, the tip of her nose and then her lips. Cosntanze’s heartbeat accelerated. No matter how many times they kissed, it always felt great.

But she still pushed Akko away, giving her a deadpan look, and pointed to her device. She should’ve been able to finish it within the day, assuming everything went smoothly. Akko pouted, but nodded, and turned back to sit in the couch. Constanze turned back to work. Right now she was making the final connections, a very slow process that required precision and patience. Akko wouldn’t understand of that, of course, but she didn’t blame her for being herself.

However, after just two minutes of working, she found herself restless. She could feel Akko staring at her, and it was driving her nuts. So, she put her tools down and turned again. The brunette perked up from her place at the couch, and smiled invitingly.

Constanze couldn’t resist, and she walked to her. They met eyes as Constanze sat closer to Akko than she needed to. She den sighed and hugged the brunette, who hugged her in turn. The German witch closed her eyes, feeling how the closeness with the brunette relaxed her, and suddenly, she wanted to sleep. They had classes in the afternoon, though, so if she slept now, she wouldn’t get any work done.

Akko made the choice for her, pushing her down and cuddling with her in the couch. Constanze rested her head on the brunette’s chest, feeling more and more tired.

Well, a day or two more wouldn’t hurt, probably…

 

Diana closed her book, sighing. As she feared, things were… Complicated.

If what Akko told her about the night of the fight with Chariot was right, then getting the exoskeleton out of her was not going to be as simple as they believed. Akko’s mind and the spirit were connected far beyond what should have been allowed. Severing that connection at once could very easily leave them both affected for life. Amnesia would be the basic side effect. At worse, Akko could end up with her entire personality changed.

And Diana knew Constanze wouldn’t want that. The tiny girl should be close to finishing her device, but Diana would have to crash that party, as much as it pained her to do it, and explain to Constanze that she should modify it to allow for a more subtle separation, one that lasted at least a week, to allow both parties to separate naturally.

It wouldn’t be a fun experience. With the connection growing weaker, Akko would slowly lose control of the exoskeleton, therefore having to remain still. Staying still was _not_ Akko’s style, at all.

Well, Constanze would probably figure out a way to do it, even if it was by tying down the brunette.

 

 

Diana was annoying, Constanze decided. Of course she would come in at the last minute and change everything with some hidden knowledge only she knew, forcing Constanze to revise her plans and come up with new ideas to deal with the problem. Particularly, forcing her to come up with a plan to get Akko to stay still.

Constanze’s face was red as she explained Akko that, for the next four days, she would have to stay in place. Akko obviously didn’t like the idea, not fully understanding that, should she move too much, she risked getting an injury similar to Amanda’s. Amanda had already healed, luckily, but Akko’s exoskeleton could make things much worse.

But the brunette didn’t mind about getting hurt. Constanze tried to get her to listen, saying that she would carry her to classes and all that, but the brunette just promised she’d be very careful and that nothing could go wrong. The device had already been in her neck for the past three days and that statement had been proven incorrect a number of times already. Akko was having trouble controlling her speed and her strength, to the point where she actually refused to hug Constanze out of fear of harming her. While the short girl appreciated the gesture, she also used it as an example of how Akko herself knew her argument was bullshit.

But Akko didn’t budge. Of course she wouldn’t, she was Akko, more stubborn than a mule by nature.

So, despite her reservations, she decided to give her newly hatched idea – though, honestly, it was probably a bad one – a shot.

 

Chariot sat in her room. She still felt a little tired over the events that had transpired, but she was happy it was finally over. She tried not to think too hard about what had happened with the Fuel Spirit cubes. They had helped beat Verochka, but in turn had allowed the spirit to keep doing harm to others.

And it had used her body.

She barely remembered anything from the time – it was but a lost dream, and the more she thought about it, the more she realized she forgot. At least it was now over. Well, mostly. Akko still had to lose her exoskeleton, but apparently that was close to happening. She had already talked to the other teachers about the situation, and they had been rather forgiving. Well, as forgiving as they could be. Once all was over, Constanze would be absolutely forbidden from leaving school or ordering any kind of package from the outside. Akko, on the other hand, would have to do a report on the events. She was seen as the victim, not the culprit, for once.

Chariot grunted, laying back on bed. On one hand, it was better that she was the one who the spirit took, not harming another student. On the other, it was like a constant hangover. Lin-Lin and Verochka hadn’t felt so bad, she believed. Maybe it was because she had been wearing two exoskeletons, apparently.

Well, she could allow herself some more rest, probably.

Next week would be really busy, though…

 

Akko sat still on her room. Sucy and Lotte were watching over her. One of them with a smirk, the other one with a wider smirk. Constanze was evil. She might look cute on the outside, and be warm and soft, but Akko knew inside her little heart she was darker than a black hole.

Yet, she didn’t move.

“You _really_ like her, don’t you?” Sucy teased. She wasn’t even working on anything, she just seemed to enjoy watching Akko suffer in quiet silence. Sucy was evil, too.

Akko scoffed. “Of course,” she said without hesitating.

“I see that. Constanze managed the thing I’ve been trying to do for over a year in less than a week. This is the power of love, huh?” Sucy snickered. Akko grunted.

“Come on, Sucy, stop it,” Lotte said, though she was still smiling. She thought it was romantic, what Akko was doing. Akko might have thought that too, but from her side, it was a real pain in the ass.

However, Constanze was denying her contact. No hugs, no kisses, unless she remained still until the exoskeleton came off. Plus, the promise… _‘Constanze. Beautiful. Girlfriend,’_ the spirit said in Akko’s mind. _Yeah, I know,_ Akko thought in annoyance. The spirit sounded farther away than it had at the start of the week. She understood that this was because their connection was slowly being severed. She actually felt sad for this, though she wasn’t fully sure if those were really _her_ feelings or the spirit’s. They often were in sync, which didn’t really help.

“I’m just saying, if I knew love would manage to pull it off, I’d seduced Akko ages ago,” Sucy said with a chuckle. Lotte sighed. Akko stared daggers at Sucy. She wouldn’t be seduced by her, ever! Probably. Could Sucy seduce her with a potion? There was the love bee, but… That was not important!

There was, of course, another reason to do as Constanze had asked. The guilt.

Akko knew Constanze was trying to get over it, but as long as she wore the exoskeleton, Constanze wouldn’t stop feeling the way she did. And, if she hurt herself again because of the exoskeleton, Constanze would just go back to how she had felt before, and Akko didn’t want that. So, instead of pushing the limits of what her body could take, she lazed about all day. It would be over in just three days. That wasn’t so bad, she could take it.

Hopefully.

 

She _couldn’t_ take it. It was just the second day, but she was already going nuts. Akko shifted in bed. She could feel the lack of control in her muscles. Her every move was too fast, her body felt way too light. And yet, she had promised. If she left her room, or if she tried any form of exercising, Constanze wouldn’t even look at her ever again. Well, Akko doubted that was true, but then there was the promise Constanze had made. The one of what would happen if Akko did as asked like a good girl.

Akko felt her ears and cheeks burn as she imagined it. No, she shouldn’t think about that. Constanze had only said it to get Akko to do as she said, it was too soon to be doing that. Probably.

But it was just so… Boring! She squirmed, impatient. She had trouble sleeping because of the exoskeleton’s energy, so she even had to wait through the night, alone, her boredom amplified ten times. She was going to go nuts.

_A little walk couldn’t hurt,_ Akko thought finally. She knew that doing so was dangerous, but what else could she do? Sucy and Lotte weren’t in the room to distract her, and it was just so, so boring…

However, right as she was about to stand up, there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Akko said. From the door appeared her tiny girlfriend, and Akko instantly felt a stab of guilt. She had been so close to breaking the promise… But, well, she hadn’t done so, and looking at Constanze refueled her determination. She wished she could hug and kiss the tiny girl but she also understood it was dangerous, so she gave it up.

Constanze smiled at her. She told Akko to lie down, and Akko did it, though not sure why. Constanze’s face grew a little red as she approached. Then, she gave Akko a thumbs up as she pointed at her body, communicating that she had been doing a great job about not moving around. Again, the brunette felt a little guilty about what she was about to do, but she let it go. She _hadn’t_ and that was the important part.

“Well, It was not-” Akko tried to be humble, but Constanze put a finger to her lips. In her eyes it was obvious that she understood this _was_ hard for Akko. The brunette wanted to embrace her so hard…

Constanze signaled for her to close her eyes. Akko raised an eyebrow, but did as she was told. Then, she felt her bed sinking as the other girl crawled next to her. She accommodated herself next to Akko, laying her head on Akko’s chest, and letting out a deep sigh.

Akko didn’t move in fear of harming her, but she no longer felt the need to do so.

Maybe, just maybe, moving was overrated.


	17. End.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the end.

When the exoskeleton fell, Akko dropped to the ground with it. Suddenly, everything was… Dull. The colors weren’t as bright, the sounds weren’t as nice. She was tired. Very tired. She felt weak. In the naked skin of her body, what had a minute ago felt like bitter cold now was just normal room temperature.

Amanda helped her up, supporting her, as Constanze pointedly avoided looking at the half naked Akko, who only wore her underwear. They were now in the workshop, since they figured it shouldn’t take long for Akko to get separated from the exoskeleton, they wanted to be in a safe place. Just three girls. Constanze didn’t lose a second and instantly dismantled the exoskeleton.

Or, at least, she tried.

The exoskeleton moved, as if trying to reunite with Akko, but when it touched her it was shocked by some strange force. Constanze tried again, but the metallic artifact didn’t seem affected by the magic.

Then, Akko stopped Constanze’s wand. “It’s ok,” she said to the exoskeleton. Or, rather, to the spirit. “I know how you feel, but I wasn’t meant to be the hero you so wish to be, little spirit,” she sounded as tired as she felt, but she couldn’t just let the spirit go without saying something to it. “It was fun.”

The exoskeleton stopped moving, and Akko sighed. She thought she would cry, but she wasn’t in the state of mind to actually reach that point. Then, when Constanze tried again, it finally fell apart. The little green spirit rose from it, eyes like dots, and it was smiling sadly. ‘Fun,’ it said. Akko didn’t know if it was in her mind or not, but she smiled at it and nodded.

Then, she dropped into the couch. The spirit floated over her, but she fell asleep before she could find out what it did after she slept.

 

Constanze watched the spirit go. It looked at her with cold acceptance. Constanze looked at it, not sure if she should communicate that she was sorry. However, the spirit didn’t gave her a chance, since it just disappeared through the ceiling.

“Well, that’s that,” Amanda said, sighing. “I’ll go back to the room, leave you to care for your girlfriend and all,” the redhead winked at Constanze, which made her blush a little. Of course, every waking moment that she didn’t spend worrying about classes, she thought about the promise she had made. But curse her dirty mind, it had actually worked. Akko didn’t end up hurting herself like she would have probably done should the promise not have been made. But, thinking about the promise also made her think of another fact.

She looked at the remains of the exoskeleton in the floor.

It was finally over.

The world suddenly seemed a lot less crazy. No more exoskeletons, no more fights. The month-long odyssey had finally ended and a weight was lifted off her shoulders. She felt happy, slightly melancholic and absolutely exhausted.

She lay in the couch, looking over Akko’s beautiful body. Akko didn’t react, so Constanze gulped and carefully laid next to her. She hugged Akko’s waist, head on her chest, and she slowly relaxed while hearing the brunette’s heartbeats and steady breathing. She was very self-conscious about the fact that her hands were touching naked skin and the warmth emanating from her body. There were no longer bruises or any sign of what had happened.

 She couldn’t help but think back at the entire experience. Her motives for creating the exoskeletons, the way she hadn’t instantly destroyed the connection it had with Akko and all the troubles her hesitance had caused, the fights, the purple spirit’s intentions… It all seemed surreal. It had happened just a couple weeks ago, but it was as if just a dream, an experience they would never forget but also wouldn’t ever feel completely solid.

Maybe that was better.

Akko’s rhythmic breathings were soothing. When sleeping, the brunette was so different from her usual hyperactive self that it was almost jarring. Constanze was sure that Akko would be the kind to move a lot in bed, but when she closed her eyes she wasn’t unlike most people. Well, except for one detail.

She slept next to Constanze.

It had been a long time since the tiny girl had been able to comfortably touch another person. She always felt uncomfortable, sure that anyone who gave her a hug would do so because she was cute and nothing else. Akko was more… Pure. It was hard to explain, and she was slightly bothered by this, but she also understood that feelings didn’t always make sense. Feelings like Akko’s towards her, for example. How the brunette had come to like Constanze was still a mystery to the tiny girl, even if she had decided to just accept it. In the end, what she thought would end her life – a stolen kiss – had actually started a new one.

She chuckled as she remembered the kiss. It would be fun, in the future, to remember their first kiss on top of a toilet in the school’s bathroom. For now, along with the laugh, she also wanted to shoot herself in the temple. She shook her head, trying to get those thoughts out of her mind.

However, moving her head also brought something to her attention. The fact that she was lying on Akko’s chest.

And she could feel her boobs.

True, it was just the head that was touching them, but she blushed. Luckily Akko was fast asleep, but Constanze still froze. She shouldn’t have felt so flustered, not after the promise she’d made, but she couldn’t help but think that she was being a pervert. How would Akko’s chest look like, when naked? She was halfway there, so maybe a little peeking wouldn’t hurt… No, why would she think about _that_? She just wanted to hug Akko, nothing more!

And she did just hug her, but that didn’t stop her mind from going into overload thinking of all the possibilities until next class started.

 

Akko awoke when Constanze was preparing to leave. She was still half naked, but she was still too tired to care. She got up and dressed despite Constanze’s protests, preparing for class.

When they left the green team’s room, Akko found a party of five people waiting for her. They all looked at her with expectant expressions. “I’m fine,” she said. She didn’t sound like it, if the faces she was looking at told her anything. “Really, I’m just tired…” It was a lie, of course. She didn’t feel fine. She had grown accustomed to the extra energy and strength. Even to the slightly enhanced senses. She felt as if something was covering her ears and nose, as if she had lost some sight. When she moved, her movements were sloppy and heavy. She couldn’t even lift Constanze, though she knew she could before using the device.

“You shouldn’t push yourself,” Diana said. Constanze nudged Akko, in a clear ‘told you’ manner. However, Akko snorted. “I’m serious, Akko. I’m surprised you can even walk, you had a device helping you over a month, it will take a while for you to go back to normal…”

“She does have to return to class soon,” someone outside of the group said. Akko looked over the heads of her friends and saw a red-haired woman walking towards them in the hallway.

“Chariot!” Akko exclaimed, though her exclamation ended as more of a cough. Chariot was smiling rather awkwardly at her. The girls turned and greeted the teacher, who got closer to the circle. She wore her usual uniform, though Akko noticed a couple of dark bags under her eyes.

“But for now, Akko,” she continued, as if Akko hadn’t interrupted her. “You should take it easy, ok? I’ve already talked to your teachers, it’ll be fine.” Her voice was so soft and kind that Akko was inclined to do as she said.

And yet… She looked at Constanze. Akko knew, each time she modified her normal life because of what the exoskeleton did, it had repercussions on the mindset of the tiny girl. So she searched for a sign of discomfort on her girlfriend. If a single shred of doubt showed on her face, Akko would go to class. She wouldn’t allow her to keep feeling like she was guilty of anything.

Constanze met her eyes, and instead, Akko found worry. The kind of worry her parents used when she hurt herself, the kind of worry Lotte and Sucy had often showed when she did something stupid. Not the ‘this was my fault’ kind of worry, but the ‘please take it easy’ kind.

“Want some?” Jasminka offered her a cookie. It was a cookie with something written on it on a rather messy way. ‘Get better.’ Akko took it and looked at it fondly for an approximate of two seconds before shoving it full into her mouth. Ah, she was super hungry, she realized.

She sighed, closed her eyes, and spoke. “Ok, I’ll rest. But someone bring me food, please!” She cried. Whens he opened her eyes again, all the girls were smiling.

Allowing herself to get dragged into her room, she ended up lying on bed. She was still tired, so she thought she could fall asleep if she wanted, but Lotte had left to get her food. In the room only remained Diana, Amanda and Constanze. Diana did a quick medical check on her – which ended with no new conclusions. She just needed rest. Then, Amanda smirked and leaned to speak in a whisper next to Akko’s ear.

“If you’re gonna do it with Constanze, I suggest you do so on the workshop. It’ll be safer,” she said, making Akko blush. Akko wanted to complain, but she somehow suspected it would only make things worse. Instead she just stared daggers at the redhead, who smiled and waved, leaving the room and dragging Diana with her.

Constanze stayed behind, looking at the brunette with intention.

“It’s going to be fine. I’ll eat, sleep and you can come check on me on the afternoon. I promise not to do anything _too_ stupid while you’re gone,” she reassured with a smile.

Constanze nodded, turning to go. Before that, however, she stopped. She turned, looking at Akko for a second longer, and in a quick motion – or what looked to Akko like a quick motion, since she was still used to her enhanced reaction time – she dashed the room and kissed Akko’s lips.

They stared at each other for a second longer, and then Constanze gave her a warm smile and left.

Akko waited until Lotte brought her food and ate, then went to sleep, a smile never leaving her face.

 

Constanze watched Akko carefully.

The brunette had finally gone back to class after a few days of resting. She still acted a little weird – dropped more things than usual, tried to lift things that were obviously too heavy for her, had this weird habit of trying to help whenever she saw someone in need – but nothing too worrisome. In the end, she was still Akko and nothing could ever change that.

As the day went on, Constanze tried not to interfere too much. Their friends knew of their relationship, but neither of them were eager to make it public by any means. Mostly because romance was absolutely forbidden by school rules.

Yet, Constanze found herself wanting to be closer to Akko constantly. Forget the promise she had made, she just wanted to hug and cuddle and overall be around the brunette. Not a very productive mindset, but as of right now she was giving a rest to making new machines. Instead, she had started building the elevator she had promised herself she’d made, and that was relatively simple in comparison to her other creations.

So, she started to do as she wanted. Subtly, of course – walking next to Akko in the hallways, forcing her teammates to sit with the red team during lunch, making sure to get paired with the brunette whenever they had the choice for group works – but constantly.

Akko seemed to pick up on this during the course of a week, and started putting her part in it too. Soon, they sneaked around during recesses to be alone for a while, or seeing each other at night. Basically, they acted like dumb teenagers in love. But Constanze loved it.

That was the point, she guessed.

And then, one night, she finally felt ready to fulfill her promise. Akko had been patient with her, and… Well, Constanze would’ve been lying to herself if she said she didn’t want to do it.

Akko found her attractive, she knew that, and well, that was the only confirmation that she needed.

 

The world was boring again. Without friends, without anyone around, the little spirit wandered aimlessly. It still looked at superhero things, when it felt like it. But it also found that looking at those things was painful. Its brother had abandoned it, its human had given it up. It no longer had anything, not a home, not a family. Nothing at all.

Maybe fading away would be a good choice. All it needed to do was to stop feeding on magic and be on with it.

But, right as it thought of that, it felt something. Something that it thought it would never again feel. A connection. Or, to be more precise, _the_ connection.

Somehow, its brother had managed to connect them again, and in the midst of a hopeless world, it could feel what its brother felt again. And there was one feeling standing above all others. A single overpowering feeling.

Regret.

However, it communicated something to its brother in response to this. Something that it always knew it would do. No matter what happened, no matter how much they fought, it would always feel this.

Gratitude.

And so, the world looked good again. Spirits, after all, are simple minded creatures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to know about the fulfilled promise... Well, I will, maybe, write it at a later date. As of now, it isn't really relevant to the story. I'll probably end up writing it, eventually, but I have a really busy week ahead of me and I had to finish this or wait for another week or so to post it and honestly fuck that.  
> Anyways, hope you liked it!


End file.
